"We shall be delighted," said Kate; but Rose put in: "Yes; but oh! how
unfortunate! it's Mrs. Briarley's garden party."

"That has been put off till next day. It is not often we get a chance at
pig, and we have always got gardens. The two need not have interfered with
each other, as we shall start at daylight for Meanwerrie; but we may be
out some hours, and so it was thought better to put off the party to a day
when there will be nothing else to do."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dick; "I am in luck! I wanted, above all things, to see
a wild boar hunt; do you think my father will let me have a spear?"

"Hardly, Dick, considering that last time you went out you tumbled off
three times at some jumps two feet wide, and that, were you to fall in
front of a pig, he would rip you up before you had time to think about it;
besides which, you would almost certainly stick somebody with your spear."

Dick laughed.

"That was the first time I had ever been on a horse," he said; "will you
ride, Ned?"

"No," said Ned; "I can ride fairly enough along a straight road, but it
wants a first-rate rider to go across country at a gallop, looking at the
boar instead of where you are going, and carrying a spear in one hand."

"Do you think papa will ride?" Kate asked.

"I don't know, Miss Warrener; the major is a famous spear; but here he is
to speak for himself."