re, by a sea of soup! And
that people should go on existing by the million in the towns, preying
on each other, and getting continually out of work, with all those
other depressing concomitants of an awkward state, distressed him. While
suburban life, that living in little rows of slate-roofed houses so
lamentably similar that no man of individual taste could bear to see
them, he much disliked. Yet, in spite of his strong prejudice in
favour of country-house life, he was not a rich man, his income barely
exceeding ten thousand a year.

The first shooting-party of the season, devoted to spinneys and the
outlying coverts, had been, as usual, made to synchronise with the last
Newmarket Meeting, for Newmarket was within an uncomfortable distance of
Worsted Skeynes; and though Mr. Pendyce had a horror of gaming, he liked
to figure there and pass for a man interested in sport for sport's sake,
and he was really rather proud of the fact that his son had picked up so
good a horse as the Ambler promised to be for so little money, and was
racing him for pure sport.

The guests had been carefully chosen. On Mrs. Winlow's right was
Thomas Brandwhite (of Brown and Brandwhite), who had a position in
the financial world which could not well be ignored, two places in the
country, and a yacht. His long, lined face, with very heavy moustaches,
wore habitually a peevish look. He had retired from his firm, and
now only sat on the Boards of several companies. Next to him was Mrs.
Hussell Barter, with that touching look to be seen on the faces of many
English ladies, that look of women who are always doing their duty,
their rather painful duty; whose eyes, above cheeks creased and
withered, once rose-leaf hued, now over-coloured by strong weather,
are starry and anxious; whose speech is simple, sympathetic, direct,
a little shy, a little hopeless, yet always hopeful; who are ever
surrounded by children, invalids, old people, all looking to them for
support; who have never known the luxury of breaking down--of these was
Mrs. Hussell Barter, the wife of the Reverend Hussell Barter, who would
shoot to-morrow, but would not attend the race-meeting on the Wednesday.
On her other hand was Gilbert Foxleigh, a lean-flanked man with a long,
narrow head, strong white teeth, and hollow, thirsting eyes. He came of
a county family of Foxleighs, and was one of six brothers, invaluable
to the owners of coverts or young, half-broken horses in days when, as