bearing the title of colonel, without any contradiction or
invidious remark. Had this gallant officer appeared as Colonel
Tifto, perhaps less might have been said about it. There was a
little lack of courage in the title which he did choose. But it
was accepted at last, and, as Major Tifto, he was proposed,
seconded, and elected at the Beargarden.

But he had other points in his favour besides the friendship of
Lord Silverbridge,--points which had probably led to that
friendship. He was, without doubt, one of the best horsemen in
England. There were some who said that, across country, he was the
very best, and that, as a judge of hunters few excelled him. Of
late years he had crept into credit as a betting-man. No one
supposed that he had much capital to work with, but still, when he
lost a bet he paid it.

Soon after his return from Spain, he was chosen as Master of the
Runnymede Fox Hounds, and was thus enabled to write the letters
M.F.H. after his name. The gentlemen who rode in the Runnymede
were not very liberal in their terms, and had lately been
compelled to change their Master rather more frequently than was
good for that quasi-suburban hunt; but now they had fitted
themselves well. How he was to hunt the county five days a
fortnight, finding servants and horses, and feeding the hounds,
for eight hundred pounds a year, no one could understand. But
Major Tifto not only undertook to do it, but did it. And he
actually succeeded in obtaining for the Runnymede a degree of
popularity which for many years previous it had not possessed.
Such a man,--even though no one did know anything of his father or
mother, though no one had ever heard him speak of a brother or a