THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



at the low price o£ one guinea. In her best da^'.s, it was 

 difficult to blow this mare in a burst ; no fence that could be 

 jumped by a horse could pound her; nor did I ever know her 

 to come home to the stable tired, after the longest day's work. 

 She is now, however, as you will perceive by her languid eye, 

 her distended carcass, low back, and fallen crest, in extreme 

 old age, the evils of which I have taken some pains to alleviate, 

 in consideration of her fourteen years' services, and I rejoice in 

 the reflection that a large offer did not induce me to part with 

 her when in her prime.' 



Having sketched the character of Mr. Raby, that of his lady 

 shall follow, and a few words will suffice. It has already been 

 said that Lady Charlotte Raby was an Earl's daughter. By 

 uniting herself in marriage to a commoner, she had descended 

 a step in society, according to the opinion of the world, 

 although, in her own eyes her husband was ennobled beyond 

 the power of a coronet to dignify him, by his conduct as a man 

 and a husband. Neither did she look back with regret towards 

 the theatre of her early life, in which her charms and accom- 

 plishments had met with universal admiration. She had 

 enjoyed nearly seven years of what is called the fashionable 

 London World, and that in all its glory; and she had had 

 enough of it. She had become the wife of a country gentle- 

 man, and was the mother of four children ; and she learnt, 

 from the experience of the first seven years of so very different 

 a life, this great moral truth : — that, although pleasure, 

 amusement, and oblivion of self are to be found at the ball- 

 room or at the opera, and although they occasionally hover 

 around the stranger's hearth, still of all the sources of human 

 happiness, domestic life is the richest and most productive ; 

 and had Lady Charlotte Raby read Horace, she would have 

 exclaimed, with him, whilst reviewing her situation at Amstead 

 Abbey, in the bosom of her owai family, and surrounded by 

 friends in whose esteem she lived, ' Quod peiis hie est.' In 

 other words, she might have added this postscript to her 

 answers to the letters of her London correspondents, who trans- 

 mitted to her the doings of the gay world : — What you look for 

 elsewhere, I find liere. 



There was, however, one feature in the amiable lady's 

 character which I am unwilling not to exhibit to my readers. 

 It too often happens that highly-bred women, who emerge from 



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