you would know what it is to have some sympathy with the sports of others.
But _you_ will have the day for the woodcock, and bring us home a great
many I hope. Miss Fleda, suppose we give this impatient young gentleman
his orders and despatch him."

"I thought you were more of a sportsman," said the vexed West
Pointer,--"or your sympathy would be with me."

"I tell you the sporting mania was never stronger on me," said the other
carelessly. "Something less than a rifle however will do to bring down the
game I am after. We will rendezvous at the little village over yonder,
unless I go home before you, which I think is more probable. Au revoir!"

With careless gracefulness he saluted his disconcerted companion, who
moved off with ungraceful displeasure. Fleda and Mr. Carleton then began
to follow back the road they had come, in the highest good humour both.
Her sparkling face told him with even greater emphasis than her words,

"I am so much obliged to you, sir."

"How you go over fences!" said he,--"like a sprite, as you are."

"O I have climbed a great many," said Fleda, accepting however, again with
that infallible instinct, the help which she did not need--"I shall be so
glad to get some nuts, for I thought I wasn't going to have any this year;
and it is so pleasant to have them to crack in the long winter evenings."

"You must find them long evenings indeed, I should think."

"O no we don't," said Fleda. "I didn't mean they were long in _that_ way.