154 A BREAKFAST, AND — BROKEN BONES. 



feliire groom — who had been thrown into the bargain 

 with "Thunderbolt," because he had looked after him 

 BO long, and knew his ways — stare with eyes as big as 

 saucers, while he pulled his forelock, and mutter, as 

 the handsome pair rode away, " God ! an if t' Yankee 

 raide that gait he'll be aif, afore at they faind." A 

 prophecy which I do not find to have been fulfilled ac- 

 cording to my notes of the events, as they occurred, 

 made on the spot. 



Meanwhile, one thing is certain, that they rode away 

 very lover-like ; there is nothing on earth like a little 

 quarrel, a passing cloud over the first sunshine of May 

 morning, and a little reconciliation, for ripening the 

 dawn of fancy into love. 



And yet, though either party confessed readily that 

 the other was desperately in love, neither was in the 

 slightest degree prepared to confess the same in re- 

 gard to self. Oh ! self ! and yet when such things be 

 at all, for the most part — aye ! ninety and nine times 

 out of the hundred — they be simultaneous. 



On they rode, along the lanes, the green winding 

 lanes of England, green still, even in mid- winter, with 

 rathe grass, and furze, and hollybrakes, and here and 

 there a misletoe bough upon the giant limb of some 

 gnarled oak, as leisurely as if the Quorndon had not 

 heard the squire's "Eleu! Eleu ! in. Eleu in ! good 

 lads," ten minutes before, and as if the sailing flight 

 of the shy wood pigeons at first, and then the whir- 

 ring of the startled pheasants skating above their 

 heads alarmed, ought not to have informed them that 

 Long Rearsby wood was half drawn already. 



Never was there a much longer, and never — to 

 judge from the attracted attention of both parties — a 

 much more satisfactory explanation or confession, or 

 whatever it might be called, than that of Colonel Percy 

 Fairfax of Accomac, Virginia. To judge from the 

 lady's rosy blushes ; but perhaps they were only the light 



