A VIRGINIAN. 39 



every gentleman who hunts regularly at Melton Mow- 

 bray ; besides which, half of them bring their families 

 along, beautiful wives, accomplished sisters, French 

 soubrettes, English nursery-maids, men cooks and va- 

 lets, persons far more important than their masters, 

 in their own eyes, and those of the gazing rustics. 



During one half the year, so utterly deserted, that 

 in a walk through its main street you shall not meet 

 one man in five who can do much more than write his 

 name ; during the other six months, two men out of 

 every three you meet will be of noble birth, every 

 fourth a baronet, and one in six a peer of a realm — 

 three thousand hunters, worth, taken en masse, not 

 less than £350,000 sterling— §1,750,000— and two 

 thousand stable followers. 



Conceive this in a town not half so big, nor one- 

 tenth part as pretty as Springfield or Newhaven. 



Of a truth, if Melton Mowbray be not a capital, 

 and one of the most wondrous that ever has been 

 seen in this world, we should rejoice to know what 

 were one. 



Some such thoughts as these, I presume, had been 

 wandering vaguely through the head of Percy Fair- 

 fax, as he walked silently down a bye-street, into 

 which they had turned instantly on leaving their own 

 door, leading to the open country, and the exercising 

 grounds immediately about the town, in the suburbs 

 of which stand the stables. 



For some time they met no persons of their own 

 rank, but scores of neatly-dressed, knee-breechesed 

 and top-booted, or kerseymere-gaitered men, with 

 smooth-shaved faces, and short-cropped hair, whom 

 you could have sworn, whether you had met them in 

 Texas or Caifraria, on Mont-Blanc or the summits of 

 the Himmalaya, to be English grooms, every one of 

 whom smirked and nodded, and pulled his top-knot 

 down over his forehead in gnostic greeting to the Rus- 



