was this:  when I induced you, you said, ’I am glad to meet your lordship gain.’  The I again’ was the surprise.  He is a little hard of hearing, and didn’t catch that word, and I thought you hadn’t intended that he should.  As we drove off I had only time to say, ‘Why, what do you know about him?’ and I understood you to say, ’Oh, nothing, except that he is the quickest judge of——­’ Then we were gone, and I didn’t get the rest.  I wondered what it was that he was such a quick judge of.  I have thought of it many times since, and still wondered what it could be.  He and I talked it over, but could not guess it out.  He thought it must be fox-hounds or horses, for he is a good judge of those—­no one is a better.  But you couldn’t know that, because you didn’t know him; you had mistaken him for some one else; it must be that, he said, because he knew you had never met him before.  And of course you hadn’t had you?”

“Yes, I had.”

“Is that so?  Where?”

“At a fox-hunt, in England.”

“How curious that is.  Why, he hadn’t the least recollection of it.  Had you any conversation with him?”

“Some—­yes.”

“Well, it left not the least impression upon him.  What did you talk about?”

“About the fox.  I think that was all.”

“Why, that would interest him; that ought to have left an impression.  What did he talk about?”

“The fox.”

It’s very curious.  I don’t understand it.  Did what he said leave an impression upon you?”

“Yes.  It showed me that he was a quick judge of—­however, I will tell you all about it, then you will understand.  It was a quarter of a century ago 1873 or ’74.  I had an American friend in London named F., who was fond of hunting, and his friends the Blanks invited him and me to come out to a hunt and be their guests at their country place.  In the morning the mounts were provided, but when I saw the horses I changed my mind and asked permission to walk.  I had never seen an English hunter before, and it seemed to me that I could hunt a fox safer on the ground.  I had always been diffident about horses, anyway, even those of the common altitudes, and I did not feel competent to hunt on a horse that went on stilts.  So then Mrs. Blank came to my help and said I could go with her in the dog-cart and we would drive to a place she knew of, and there we should have a good glimpse of the hunt as it went by.

“When we got to that place I got out and went and leaned my elbows on a low stone wall which enclosed a turfy and beautiful great field with heavy wood on all its sides except ours.  Mrs. Blank sat in the dog-cart fifty yards away, which was as near as she could get with the vehicle.  I was full of interest, for I had never seen a fox-hunt.  I waited, dreaming and imagining, in the deep stillness and impressive tranquility which reigned in that retired spot.  Presently, from away off in the forest