y,--

"If you did exchange horses with him, of course I have only to ask his
pardon--and go."

Catharine reflected a moment before she replied.

"Well," said she, "I did exchange, and I did not. Why quarrel about a
word? Certainly he took my horse, and I took his; but it was only for
the nonce. Mr. Neville is foreign-bred, and an example to us all: he
knows his piebald is worth two of my gray, and so he was too fine a
gentleman to send me back my old hunter and ask for his young charger.
He waited for me to do that; and if anybody deserves to be shot, it must
be Me. But, dear heart, I did not foresee all this fuss; I said to
myself, 'La, Mr. Neville will be sure to call on my father or me some
day, or else I shall be out on the piebald and meet him on the gray, and
then we can each take our own again.' Was I so far out in my reckoning?
Is not that my Rosinante yonder? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my
side-saddle on that gray horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald
there. And now, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn: you must withdraw your
injurious terms, and end this superlative folly."

Griffith hesitated.

"Come," said Kate, "consider: Mr. Neville is esteemed by all the county:
you are the only gentleman in it who has ever uttered a disparaging word
against him. Are you sure you are more free from passion and prejudice
and wiser than all the county? Oblige _me_, and do what is right. Come,
Griffith Gaunt, let your reason unsay the barbarous words your passion
hath uttered against a worthy gentleman whom we all esteem."

Her habitual influence, and these last words, spoken with gentle and
persuasive dignity, turned the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and
said in a low voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used
harsher words than the occasion justified: he was going to stammer out
something more, but Neville interrupted him with a noble gesture.

"That is enough, Mr. Gaunt," said he. "I do not feel quite blameless in
the matter, and have no wish to mortify an honorable adversary
unnecessarily."

"Very handsomely said," put in Major Rickards; "and now let me have a
word. I say that both gentlemen have conducted themselves like
men--under fire; and that honor is satisfied, and the misunderstanding
at an end. As for my principal here, he has shown he can fight, and now
he has shown he can hear reason against himself, when the lips of beauty
utter it. I approve his conduct from first to last, and am