man wheeled away up the meadow, as Bracebridge shouted after him,--

'Oh, he'll make a fine rider--in time!'

'In time!' Lancelot could have knocked the unsuspecting colonel
down for the word. It just expressed the contrast, which had
fretted him ever since he began to hunt with the Whitford Priors
hounds. The colonel's long practice and consummate skill in all he
took in hand,--his experience of all society, from the prairie
Indian to Crockford's, from the prize-ring to the continental
courts,--his varied and ready store of information and anecdote,--
the harmony and completeness of the man,--his consistency with his
own small ideal, and his consequent apparent superiority everywhere
and in everything to the huge awkward Titan-cub, who, though
immeasurably beyond Bracebridge in intellect and heart, was still in
a state of convulsive dyspepsia, 'swallowing formulae,' and daily
well-nigh choked; diseased throughout with that morbid self-
consciousness and lust of praise, for which God prepares, with His
elect, a bitter cure. Alas! poor Lancelot! an unlicked bear, 'with
all his sorrows before him!'--

'Come along,' quoth Bracebridge, between snatches of a tune, his
coolness maddening Lancelot. 'Old Lavington will find us dry
clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming daughters, at the
Priory. In with you, little Mustang of the prairie! Neck or
nothing!'--

And in an instant the small wiry American, and the huge Horncastle-
bred hunter, were wallowing and staggering in the yeasty stream,
till they floated into a deep reach, and swam steadily down to a low