areer. Maxwell was
certainly the first there,--but Sir William and George Vavasor were
close upon him. That taking of brushes of which we used to hear is a
little out of fashion; but if such honour were due to any one it was
due to Vavasor, for he and he only had ridden the hunt throughout.
But he claimed no honour, and none was specially given to him. He
and Maxwell rode homewards together, having sent assistance to poor
Burgo Fitzgerald; and as they went along the road, saying but little
to each other, Maxwell, in a very indifferent voice, asked him a
question.

"What do you want for that horse, Vavasor?"

"A hundred and fifty," said Vavasor.

"He's mine," said Maxwell. So the brown horse was sold for about half
his value, because he had brought with him a bad character.

CHAPTER XVIII

Alice Vavasor's Great Relations

Burgo Fitzgerald, of whose hunting experiences something has been
told in the last chapter, was a young man born in the purple of the
English aristocracy. He was related to half the dukes in the kingdom,
and had three countesses for his aunts. When he came of age he was
master of a sufficient fortune to make it quite out of the question
that he should be asked to earn his bread; and though that, and other
windfalls that had come to him, had long since been spent, no one
had ever made to him so ridiculous a proposition as that. He was now
thirty, and for some years past had been known to be much worse than
penniless; but still he lived on in the same circles, still slept
softly and drank of the best, and went about with his valet and his
groom and his horses, and fared sumptuously every day. Some people
said the countesses did it for him, and some said that it was the
dukes;--while others, again, declared that the Jews were his most
generous friends. At any rate he still seemed to live as he had
always lived, setting tradesmen at defiance, and laughing to scorn
all the rules which regulate the lives of other men.

About eighteen months before the time of which I am now speaking,
a great chance had come in this young man's way, and he had almost
succeeded in making himself one of the richest men in England. There
had been then a great heiress in the land, on whom the properties of
half-a-dozen ancient families had concentrated; and Burgo, who in
spite of his iniquities still kept his position in the drawing-rooms
of the great, had almost succeeded in obtaining the hand and the
wealth,--a