than I
am, and a cousin and all that, but I'm not going to put up with
insolence. If it were anywhere else I should just go into the yard and
ask if I could have a horse and saddle as a matter of course.'

'Roger has not a great establishment.'

'I suppose he has a horse and saddle, and a man to get it ready. I
don't want anything grand.'

'He is vexed because he sent twice to the station for you yesterday.'

'I hate the kind of fellow who is always thinking of little
grievances. Such a man expects you to go like clockwork, and because
you are not wound up just as he is, he insults you. I shall ask him
for a horse as I would any one else, and if he does not like it, he
may lump it.' About half an hour after this he found his cousin. 'Can
I have a horse to ride over to Caversham this afternoon?' he said.

'Our horses never go out on Sunday,' said Roger. Then he added, after
a pause, 'You can have it. I'll give the order.' Sir Felix would be
gone on Tuesday, and it should be his own fault if that odious cousin
ever found his way into Carbury House again! So he declared to himself
as Felix rode out of the yard; but he soon remembered how probable it
was that Felix himself would be the owner of Carbury. And should it
ever come to pass,--as still was possible,--that Henrietta should be
the mistress of Carbury, he could hardly forbid her to receive her
brother. He stood for a while on the bridge watching his cousin as he
cantered away upon the road, listening to the horse's feet. The young
man was offensive in every possible way. Who does not know that ladies
only are allowed to canter their friends' horses upon roads? A
gentleman trots his horse, and his friend's horse. Roger Carbury had
but one saddle horse,--a favourite old hunter that he loved as a friend.
And now this dear old friend, whose legs probably were not quite so
good as they once were, was being galloped along the hard road by that
odious cub! 'Soda and brandy!' Roger exclaimed to himself almost aloud,
thinking of the discomfiture of that early morning. 'He'll die some
day of delirium tremens in a hospital!'

Before the Longestaffes left London to receive their new friends the
Melmottes at Caversham, a treaty had been made between Mr Longestaffe,
the father, and Georgiana, the strong-minded daughter. The daughter on
her side undertook that the guests should be treated with feminine
courtesy. This might be called the most-favoured-nation clause. The
Melmo