278 MISS BADSWORTH, M.F.H. 



" And you a sportsman and fond of hunting ! Why, dad 

 hates a frost and I am sure Uncle Hugo did ! " 



" Well, I'm glad, even though it be high treason to say so 

 in this room ; I am glad because — because it will do good. 

 A hard frost restores the balance of nature, kills the grubs 

 and things, you know." 



*' Really ! " Lavvy exclaimed, shading her face from the 

 fire with a small Japanese screen. " Since when have you 

 become so ardent an agriculturist, or horticulturist, or what- 

 ever you are ? Perhaps after to-day you are as disgusted as 

 was. 



"Was? That's good, I'm delighted to hear it. I feared 

 you might take that scurvy treatment to heart. You appeared 

 so angry that I thought it kindest not to condole." 



"And it was kindest," Lavvy replied with a quick little 

 glance from behind the screen. " I really was unfit to speak 

 to any one, but now let me thank you for that timely piece 

 of pilotage ; we should never have got up as we did but for 

 that." 



" Oh, that was only a matter of experience. You see I had 

 bathed in that brook, horse and all, at least three times in 

 my life, insomuch that I made a special expedition to find a 

 practicable place, and the old horse I rode hopped over just 

 there in cold blood, and on a Sunday afternoon, too. * Now, 

 had this horseman been at home or jumping on dry 

 ground,' you know, ought to have been the moral, only it 

 wasn't. Of course hounds have never run that way since 

 until to-day. May I compliment you and the Banker ? I 

 hope Miss Badsworth isn't angry with me for deserting her, 

 but you know when other horses are going that King Rufus 

 of mine is hard to hold." 



" I daresay. The pony, as they call him, did go well." 

 Lavvy acknowledged a singular sense of gratification in the 

 way in which Jack intimated so much without actually say- 

 ing it. " Auntie has written what dad calls ' a corker ' to 

 Captain Majendie, and she and I have just had two separate 

 interviews with two young officers from Mulchester." 



