it make to a man whether he has forty or fifty thousand pounds a year,—­or at any rate to such a man?  Perhaps Miss Penge herself was an acquisition.  He did not hunt so often or shoot so much, and was seen in church once at least on every Sunday.  In a very short time his friends perceived that a very great change had come over him.  He was growing fat, and soon disliked the trouble of getting up early to go to a distant meet; and, before a year or two had passed away, it had become an understood thing that in country houses he was not one of the men who went down at night into the smoking-room in a short dressing-coat and a picturesque cap.  Miss Penge had done all this.  He had had his period of pleasure, and no doubt the change was desirable;—­but he sometimes thought with regret of the promise Arabella Trefoil had made him, that she would never interfere with his gratification.

At Dillsborough everything during the summer after the Squire’s marriage fell back into its usual routine.  The greatest change made there was in the residence of the attorney, who with his family went over to live at Hoppet Hall, giving up his old house to a young man from Norrington, who had become his partner, but keeping the old office for his business.  Mrs. Masters did, I think, like the honour and glory of the big house, but she would never admit that she did.  And when she was constrained once or twice in the year to give a dinner to her step-daughter’s husband and Lady Ushant, that, I think, was really a period of discomfort to her.  When at Bragton she could at any rate be quiet, and Mary’s caressing care almost made the place pleasant to her.

Mr. Runciman prospers at the Bush, though he has entirely lost his best customer, Lord Rufford.  But the U.R.U. is still strong, in spite of the philosophers, and in the hunting season the boxes of the Bush Inn are full of horses.  The club goes on without much change, Mr. Masters being very regular in his attendance, undeterred by the grandeur of his new household.  And Larry is always there,—­with increased spirit, for he has dined two or three times lately at Hampton Wick, having met young Hampton at the Squire’s house at Bragton.  On this point Fred Botsey was for a time very jealous;—­but he found that Larry’s popularity was not to be shaken, and now is very keen in pushing an intimacy with the owner of Chowton Farm.  Perhaps the most stirring event in the neighbourhood has been the retirement of Captain Glomax from the post of Master.  When the season was over he made an application to Lord Rufford respecting certain stable and kennel expenses, which that nobleman snubbed very bluntly.  Thereupon the Captain intimated to the Committee that unless some advances were made he should go.  The Committee refused, and thereupon the Captain went;—­not altogether to the dissatisfaction of the farmers, with whom an itinerant Master is seldom altogether popular.  Then for a time there was great gloom in the U.R.U.  What