170 SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIELD. 



utterly offensive condition of affairs sometimes known as 

 "seasonable weather" has come about with a vengeance. 

 You dress leisurely, and saunter down to breakfast, where 

 your companions are trying hard to look agreeable, and 

 that donkey Borders, an amateur actor of distressing 

 pertinacity, is in high feather ; which does not niake 

 you love Borders. Neither can you cordially join in 

 Miss Pensyller's enthusiastic admiration for the scene 

 from the windows, the bare twigs and branches of the 

 trees exquisitely — the phrase is hers, and, in this con- 

 nection, is what Polonius calls " a vile phrase " — traced 

 out with the snow. The little birds are having a festive 

 time over an unexpected breakfast thoughtfully provided 

 by our hostess, when, poor little creatures, they had de- 

 spaired of that meal, and were more than doubtful about 

 luncheon. But what are we to do ? Read last night's 

 papers which have just come by post ? As always 

 happens under such circumstances they are singularly 

 uninteresting. 



Round to the stables we go for a smoke, but this again 

 is an annoying performance, for it is a proposition which 

 I fancy few will dispute, that horses never look so fit 

 and so much like going as on a " seasonable " morning. 

 Your favourite, that you intended to ride to-day — con- 

 found this frost ! — gazes round at you as much as to say, 

 "It's rather poor sort of fun standing here. Why is no one 

 getting me ready, and how about those hounds ? " You 

 cannot stand this, and stroll back to the house, where 

 you find Borders endeavouring to organize a dramatic 



