ng of his fortune.
You asked him here, not ME,' exclaimed Jawleyford, stamping
furiously.

'No, my dear,' replied Mrs. Jawleyford mildly; 'he asked himself, you know;
but I thought, perhaps, you might have said something that--'

'ME say anything!' interrupted Jawleyford. '_I_ never said
anything--at least, nothing that any man with a particle of sense would
think anything of,' continued he, remembering the scene in the
billiard-room. 'It's one thing to tell a man, if he comes your way, you'll
be glad to see him, and another to ask him to come bag and baggage, as this
impudent Mr. Sponge has done,' added he.

'Certainly,' replied Mrs. Jawleyford, who saw where the shoe was pinching
her bear.

'I wish he was off,' observed Jawleyford, after a pause. 'He bothers me
excessively--I'll try and get rid of him by saying we are going from home.'

'Where can you say we are going to?' asked Mrs. Jawleyford.

'Oh, anywhere,' replied Jawleyford; 'he doesn't know the people about here:
the Tewkesbury's, the Woolerton's, the Brown's--anybody.'

Before they had got any definite plan of proceeding arranged, Mr. Sponge
returned from the chase. 'Ah, my dear sir!' exclaimed Jawleyford,
half-gaily, half-moodily, extending a couple of fingers as Sponge entered
his study: 'we thought you had taken French leave of us, and were off.'

Mr. Sponge asked if his groom had not delivered his note.

'No,' replied Jawleyford boldly, though he had it in his pocket; 'at least,
not that I've seen. Mrs. Jawleyford, perhaps, may have got it,' added he.

'Indeed!' exclaimed Sponge; 'it was very idle of him.' He then proceeded to
detail to Jawleyford what the reader already knows, how he had lost his day
at Larkhall Hill, and had tried to make up for it by going to the
cross-roads. 'Ah!' exclaimed Jawleyford, when he was done; 'that's a
pity--great pity--monstrous pity--never knew anything so unlucky in my
life.'

'Misfortunes will happen,' replied Sponge, in a tone of unconcern.

'Ah, it wasn't so much the loss of the hunt I was thinking of,' replied
Jawleyford, 'as the arrangements we have made in consequence of thinking
you were gone.'

'What are they?' asked Sponge.

'Why, my Lord Barker, a great friend of ours--known him from a boy--just
like brothers, in short--sent over this morning to ask us all
there--shooting party, charades, that sort of thing--and we accepted.'

'But that need make no difference,' replied Sponge; 'I'll go too.'