quite the common talk of the house, although the old gentlemen had not held their tongues altogether.

"Coming out to-morrow?" asked Sir George.

"I'm afraid not," she replied, abstractedly. Her manner was so cold and different that even this stolid, stupid, young man observed the change.

"Not?

Bless my soul, Mrs. Singleton, why the meet here is on purpose for you. Why not?"

"My husband has been called up to town very suddenly, and he cannot be back, at the very earliest, till to-morrow night."

Sir George was so staggered at the bare prospect of Ernestine's non-appearance that he waxed quite courageous.

"Will Mr.-Will your husband's absence make any difference? difference? What use would he be?"

"Well, propriety in the first place must be

considered, Sir George. In the second, it makes me more comfortable to know that he is somewhere near."

"Couldn't you be comfortable with anybody else," asked Hetherington, with as bold a look as he could command.

At any other time Ernestine would have met the query with an arch retort. In her present mood the baronet's question savoured of impertinence, and deserved punishment. Ernestine, by treating him to a long cold stare from her wide surprised eyes, metaphorically boxed his ears, and aroused him to a full sense of his false position.

CHAPTER XI.

A WORD AND A BLOW.

"Petruchio. I am a gentleman.

Kate. That I'll try. (She strikes him)."
TAMING OF THE SHREW.

NOTWITHSTANDING the setting down she had given Sir George Hetherington, when he had spoken to her about the next day's hunting, Ernestine found it impossible to resist the fascination of the sport when the morning

came.

McLavery and her maid had both

helped to strangle her scruples.

"Not hunt, ma'am ?" the astonished groom had said, when he came for orders in the evening, and was ushered into his mistress's room by Hoffman, as the dressing for dinner was in progress. "Not hunt! And the mare just as fit as fit. Why, ma'am, you'd be after giving them all the go by."

"Not hunt!" continued the maid, surprised. "After getting the top boots and all."

For one of the results of the late visit to town had been the arrival at Blayneys of a spick and span new pair of lady's top-boots, shining leather, neat and pretty, a work of art in themselves. The combined attractions of a horse jumping out of its skin for freshness, and the new boots, to be worn for the first time, were too much for Ernestine. Perhaps other motives had their weight. Already had she found that the other ladies at Blayneys and herself were somewhat antag

onistic. Most of them turned up their noses at her, or at best spoke only with an air of freezing condescension. The fact was, the matrons saw in the fascinating Mrs. Singleton a dangerous rival for their daughters, and the latter hated her because she monopolized the best men. Ernestine had been looking forward for days to meeting these people, in the place of all others, where she could best show them their inferiority. She knew that in the hunting field, she could expect to cope with the best of them. The delight of splashing pert Miss Tomlinson with mud, or of leaving the eldest Miss Gore in a ditch would be so great that it was impossible to forego the day's hunting, which was to furnish her with the opportunity for her vengeance.

So she came down to breakfast in her habit, and with the new boots on.

"After all!" cried Lord John, heading a chorus of congratulations from the men. The ladies made no remark, but lifted their eye