lack of matter was easily supplied from the magazines and new books.  In this department, indeed, in the department of elegant light literature generally, Mr. Grimes was ably assisted by his eldest daughter, Lucy, a young lady of a certain age—­say liberal thirty—­an ardent Bloomer—­with a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with which she generally filled the poet’s corner.  This assistance enabled Grimes to look after his auctioneering, bleaching, and paper-hanging concerns, and it so happened that when the foregoing run arrived at the office he, having seen the next paper ready for press, had gone to Mr. Vosper’s, some ten miles off, to paper his drawing-room, consequently the duties of deciding upon its publication devolved on the Bloomer.  Now, she was a most refined, puritanical young woman, full of sentiment and elegance, with a strong objection to what she considered the inhumanities of the chase.  At first she was for rejecting the article altogether, and had it been a run with the Tinglebury Harriers, or even, we believe, with Lord Scamperdale’s hounds, she would have consigned it to the ‘Balaam box,’ but seeing it was with Mr. Puffington’s hounds, whose house they had papered, and who advertised with them, she condescended to read it; and though her delicacy was shocked at encountering the word ‘stunning’ at the outset, and also at the term ‘ravishing scent’ farther on, she nevertheless sent the manuscript to the compositors, after making such alterations and corrections as she thought would fit it for eyes polite.  The consequence was that the article appeared in the following form, though whether all the absurdities were owing to Miss Lucy’s corrections, or the carelessness of the writer, or the printers, had anything to do with it, we are not able to say.  The errors, some of them arising from the mere alteration or substitution of a letter, will strike a sporting more than a general reader.  Thus it appeared in the middle of the third sheet of the Swillingford Patriot: 

    SPLENDID RUN WITH MR. PUFFINGTON’S HOUNDS.

This splendid pack had a superb run from Hollyburn Hanger, the property of its truly popular and sporting owner, Mr. Puffington.  A splendid field of well-appointed sportsmen, among whom we recognized several distinguished strangers, and members of Lord Scamperdale’s hunt, were present.  After partaking of the well-known profuse and splendid hospitality of Hanby House, they proceeded at once to Hollyburn Hanger, where a fine seasonal fox, though some said he was a bay one, broke away in view of the whole pack, every hound scorning to cry, and making the welkin ring with their melody.  He broke at the lower end of the cover, and crossing the brook, made straight for Fleecyhaugh Water Meadows, over which there is always an exquisite perfume; from there he made a slight bend, as if inclining for the plantations at Winstead, but changing his mind, he faced the rising ground, and crossing over nearly the highest