frightened, and I am so friendless;" and the boy, who had before
resented the slightest nudge on the part of Kenelm, now wound his arm
into Kenelm's, and clung to him caressingly.

I don't know what my readers have hitherto thought of Kenelm
Chillingly: but, amid all the curves and windings of his whimsical
humour, there was one way that went straight to his heart; you had
only to be weaker than himself and ask his protection.

He turned round abruptly; he forgot all the strangeness of his
position, and replied: "Little brute that you are, I'll be shot if I
forsake you if in trouble. But some compassion is also due to the
cob: for his sake say where we are to stop."

"I am sure I can't say: I never was here before. Let us go to a nice
quiet inn. Drive slowly: we'll look out for one."

Tor-Hadham was a large town, not nominally the capital of the county,
but, in point of trade and bustle and life, virtually the capital.
The straight street, through which the cob went as slowly as if he had
been drawing a Triumphal Car up the Sacred Hill, presented an animated
appearance. The shops had handsome facades and plate-glass windows;
the pavements exhibited a lively concourse, evidently not merely of
business, but of pleasure, for a large proportion of the passers-by
was composed of the fair sex, smartly dressed, many of them young and
some pretty. In fact a regiment of her Majesty's -----th Hussars had
been sent into the town two days before; and, between the officers of
that fortunate regiment and the fair sex in that hospitable town,
there was a natural emulation which should make the greater number of
slain and wounded. The advent of these heroes, professional