said Peter.

“I don’t know that;” said Jack; and then they debated that question hotly.

Our horses were very tired, and it was late before we reached Mr. O’Conor’s house.  That getting home from hunting with a thoroughly weary animal, who has no longer sympathy or example to carry him on, is very tedious work.  In the present instance I had company with me; but when a man is alone, when his horse toes at every ten steps, when the night is dark and the rain pouring, and there are yet eight miles of road to be conquered,—at such time a man is almost apt to swear that he will give up hunting.

At last we were in the Castle Conor stable yard;—for we had approached the house by some back way; and as we entered the house by a door leading through a wilderness of back passages, Mr. O’Conor said out loud, “Now, boys, remember I sit down to dinner in twenty minutes.”  And then turning expressly to me, he laid his hand kindly upon my shoulder and said, “I hope you will make yourself quite at home at Castle Conor, and whatever you do, don’t keep us waiting for dinner.  You can dress in twenty minutes, I suppose?”

“In ten!” said I, glibly.

“That’s well.  Jack and Peter will show you your room,” and so he turned away and left us.

My two young friends made their way into the great hall, and thence into the drawing-room, and I followed them.  We were all dressed in pink, and had waded deep through bog and mud.  I did not exactly know whither I was being led in this guise, but I soon found myself in the presence of two young ladies, and of a girl about thirteen years of age.

“My sisters,” said Jack, introducing me very laconically; “Miss O’Conor, Miss Kate O’Conor, Miss Tizzy O’Conor.”

“My name is not Tizzy,” said the younger; “it’s Eliza.  How do you do, sir?  I hope you had a fine hunt!  Was papa well up, Jack?”

Jack did not condescend to answer this question, but asked one of the elder girls whether anything had come, and whether a room had been made ready for me.

“Oh yes!” said Miss O’Conor; “they came, I know, for I saw them brought into the house; and I hope Mr. Green will find everything comfortable.”  As she said this I thought I saw a slight smile steal across her remarkably pretty mouth.

They were both exceedingly pretty girls.  Fanny the elder wore long glossy curls,—for I write, oh reader, of bygone days, as long ago as that, when ladies wore curls if it pleased them so to do, and gentlemen danced in pumps, with black handkerchiefs round their necks,—yes, long black, or nearly black silken curls; and then she had such eyes;—I never knew whether they were most wicked or most bright; and her face was all dimples, and each dimple was laden with laughter and laden with love.  Kate was probably the prettier girl of the two, but on the whole not so attractive.  She was fairer than her sister, and wore her hair in braids; and was also somewhat more demure in her manner.

In spite of the special injunctions of Mr. O’Conor senior, it was impossible not to loiter for five minutes over the drawing-room fire talking to these houris—more especially as I seemed to know them intimately by intuition before half of the five minutes was over.  They were so easy, so pretty, so graceful, so kind, they seemed to take it so much as a matter of course that I should stand there talking in my red coat and muddy boots.

“Well; do go and dress yourselves,” at last said Fanny, pretending to speak to her brothers but looking more especially a me.  “You know how mad papa will be.  And remember Mr. Green, we expect great things from your dancing to-night.  Your coming just at this time is such a Godsend.”  And again that soupçon of a smile passed over her face.

I hurried up to my room, Peter and Jack coming with me to the door.  “Is everything right?” said Peter, looking among the towels and water-jugs.  “They’ve given you a decent fire for a wonder,” said Jack, stirring up the red hot turf which blazed in the grate.  “All right as a trivet,” said I.  “And look alive like a good fellow,” said Jack.  We had scowled at each other in the morning as very young men do when they are strangers; and now, after a few hours, we were intimate friends.

I immediately turned to my work, and was gratified to find that all my things were laid out ready for dressing; my portmanteau had of course come open, as my keys were in my pocket, and therefore some of the excellent servants of the house had been able to save me all the trouble of unpacking.  There was my shirt hanging before the fire; my black clothes were spread upon the bed, my socks and collar and handkerchief beside them; my brushes were on the toilet table, and everything prepared exactly as though my own man had been there.  How nice!

I immediately went to work at getting off my spurs and boots, and then proceeded to loosen the buttons at my knees.  In doing this I sat down in the arm-chair which had been drawn up for me, opposite the fire.  But what was the object on which my eyes then fell;—the objects I should rather say!

Immediately in front of my chair was placed, just ready for may feet, an enormous pair of shooting-boots—half-boots made to lace up round the ankles, with thick double leather soles, and each bearing half a stone of iron in the shape of nails and heel-pieces.  I had superintended the making of these shoes in Burlington Arcade with the greatest diligence.  I was never a good shot; and, like some other sportsmen, intended to make up for my deficiency in performance by the excellence of my shooting apparel.  “Those nails are not large enough,” I had said; “nor nearly large enough.”  But when the boots came home they struck even me as being too heavy, too metalsome.  “He, he, he,” laughed the boot boy as he turned them up for me to look at.  It may therefore be imagined of what nature were the articles which were thus set out for the evening’s dancing.

And then the way in which they were placed!  When I saw this the conviction flew across my mind like a flash of lightning that the preparation had been made under other eyes than those of the servant.  The heavy big boots were placed so prettily before the chair, and the strings of each were made to dangle down at the sides, as though just ready for tying!  They seemed to say, the boots did, “Now, make haste.  We at any rate are ready—you cannot say that you were kept waiting for us.”  No mere servant’s hand had ever enabled a pair of boots to laugh at one so completely.

But what was I to do?  I rushed at the small portmanteau, thinking that my pumps also might be there.  The woman surely could not have been such a fool as to send me those tons of iron for my evening wear!  But, alas, alas! no pumps were there.  There was nothing else in the way of covering for my feet; not even a pair of slippers.

And now what was I to do?  The absolute magnitude of my misfortune only loomed upon me by degrees.  The twenty minutes allowed by that stern old paterfamilias were already gone and I had done nothing towards dressing.  And indeed it was impossible that I should do anything that would be of avail.  I could not go down to dinner in my stocking feet, nor could I put on my black dress trousers, over a pair of mud-painted top-boots.  As for those iron-soled horrors—; and then I gave one of them a kick with the side of my bare foot which sent it half way under the bed.

But what was I to do?  I began washing myself and brushing my hair with this horrid weight upon my mind.  My first plan was to go to bed, and send down word that I had been taken suddenly ill in the stomach; then to rise early in the morning and get away unobserved.  But by such a course of action I should lose all chance of any further acquaintance with those pretty girls!  That they were already aware of the extent of my predicament, and were now enjoying it—of that I was quite