122 THE SPORTING WORLD. 



go. He sees her up to town and confides her 



to the care of Madame , where he leaves 



her, for the first time in their lives, the post 

 must now be their only mode of communication; 

 he returns home, feels he has lost something, 

 and for the first time drinks his ale handed 

 to him by his good wife without some hilarous 

 expression of his content and happiness. Such 

 probably were his first feelings. He little thought 

 the girl of his heart, one on whom both parents 

 had lavished their fond care and affections, was 

 doomed never agam to cross his threshold, or 

 mix again with her less attractive but more 

 domesticated sisters ; but we will drop an event 

 too often the fate of the once virtuous and 

 happy. Was the anathema the honest farmer 

 fulminated against London, the result of second 

 sight, a foreboding of what was to smite his 

 honest affectionate heart? Better had it been 

 had he, as the gentleman is accused of, *' done 

 nothing for his family," better had he kept 



