ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no special motives of resentment. To every
bad there is a worse; and fortunately for little boys, and even for grown
men, whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, the majesty and law
protect their ears, and the merciful forethought of nature deprived their
remote ancestors of the privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it
been otherwise--considering what handles tails would have given to the
oppressor, how many traps envy would have laid for them, how often they
must have been scratched and mutilated by the briars of life, how many
good excuses would have been found for lopping, docking, and trimming
them--I fear that only the lap-dogs of Fortune would have gone to the
grave tail-whole.




CHAPTER XII.

The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though
the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay
window, which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up a
moderate-sized London parlour) held the great round tea-table, with all
appliances and means to boot,--for the beautiful summer moon shed on the
sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow, and the
flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that to close the
windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than those of
heaven would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even Captain
Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the holiday of
the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the
clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the garden-ground round those
old-fashioned country residences which, though a little modernized, still