THE HAUGHTYSHIRE HUNT. 



the then head of the Benwells, most unwillingly, to let the 

 good old house, and retire, with his wife and the younger 

 members of his family, to the comparative seclusion of a 

 small Continental watering-place, in which he ultimately 

 died, without recovering any part of his lost fortune. 



Just about the time that The Chase came into the 

 market, a Mr. Septimus Binlde, who was always described 

 by his friends and toadies — of whom he had many — as a 

 ' Merchant Prince,' and by his enemies — of which there 

 were few — as a tallow-chandler in a large way of business, 

 had just come to the conclusion that, the number of 

 thousands in the ' Threes ' being sufficiently large, he 

 would close the shutters of the shop in Billiter Street for 

 ever, knock off the plebeian, if highly respectable, prefix of 

 'Mr.,' and blossom out into Septimus Binkie, Esquire, of 

 some important place in the country. 



Not that Mr. Binkie cared for a country life, but he was 

 quite shrewd enough to know that he would find it easier 

 to get into society — a thing which Mrs. Binkie assured 

 him was essential to their worldly happiness at least, if 

 not, indeed, to the ultimate salvation of their souls — in 

 some spot remote from the place in which ' Try Binkie' s 

 Composites ' had been so liberally advertised, than it would 

 be in the great Metropolis itself. And the Binkies, j>('r(? et 

 mere, soared high ; a title indeed, for one, if not for both 

 of their children, was quite within those fond dreams of 

 future greatness, in which these worthy people were wont to 

 indulge. 



The famille Binkie consisted of one lovely daughter, and 

 one unlovely son. The pink-and-white complexion, shell- 



