of cows. At thirteen minutes to nine Mr. Ripple let his monocle drop; Mr. Oboe replaced his watch; the Pump Room bell began to clang very fast; the Exquisite Mob started to climb the hill and innumerable glass goblets glittered in the sun. When the summit was reached the Beau called in a loud voice:

"Oboe!"

"Mr. Ripple?" bowed the Physician.

"I allow two more minutes for panting."

"Certainly, Mr. Ripple. Very just, sir."

So the Exquisite Mob like the Hart panted after the Waters or perhaps more accurately before them.

At the expiration of the breathing-space, a diminutive negro known as Gog advanced towards Mr. Ripple, bearing a fluted goblet upon a tray of Chinese lacker. An equally diminutive negro called Magog presented the goblet to Mr. Ripple who turned slightly in the direction of the company and slowly sipped his portion with consummate meditation. When almost half-way towards the bottom of the glass the Beau looked up as if surprized to see his adherents still thirsty. This was understood to be the signal for approach, and the Exquisite Mob advanced to drink while the children, miniatures of foppery, played Hide and Seek or Touchlast round the pillars.

Mrs. Courteen sailed towards a thin little military man with a very long and very crisp pigtail, whose outstanding feature in front was an extremely conical Adam's Apple that bobbed up and down as if his throat were a bowl of water and, rising with his choler, at boiling-point invariably choked him into incoherence.

The Major would have passed for one of those half-pay officers who frequent watering-places and rely for many of their meals upon an acquaintance with the tacticks and strategy of the late Duke of Marlborough, with the miserable failure of Carthagena and the already forgotten personality of his Highness the Duke of C—— d.

As a matter of fact, he had followed Mrs. Courteen to Curtain Wells from Hampshire where he owned a small hunting lodge known as Ramilies House, Oudenarde Grange, and Malplaquet Place according to his humour, but for no discoverable reason besides. He had a painted board for each designation, but nobody ever extracted from him the principle on which, from time to time, they were changed. When asked on one occasion why he omitted the famous victory of Blenheim from his titular commemoration, he replied that the omission saved the expense of continually forwarding letters to Oxfordshire. The Major was inclined to resent the homage paid to Beau Ripple.

"A d——d civilian, ma'am," he muttered to Mrs. Courteen.

"Oh! you soldiers! I protest you have no reverence for anybody."

"Not I, ma'am. I don't bow the knee to a living soul. Not at all. 'Sblood, ma'am, the fellow's no better than a low adventurer. Would he fight? Not he. So he forbids us to wear swords. D—— n it, ma'am, a soldier without his hanger is like a monkey without his tail. That's what I say."

"So do I, Major, so do I," echoed a suave voice over his shoulder and the Major turning round, encountered the bland half-bored, half-tolerant smile of the Great little Man.

"Your similes are uncommon happy, Major."

Tarry's Apple throbbed and bubbled and rose and sank, but the Beau passed on contemptuously, and a large flabby man in a suit of snuff-coloured frieze treading upon the Major's toe at this moment, the latter's wrath flowed into another channel.

"My toe, Mr. Moon!" he said furiously.

"Your toe?" inquired the other with great earnestness. The question of disputed property which seemed imminent was quashed by the widow's interruption:

"'Tis too early for argument. Come, neighbours, let us make our promenade. Where is Phyllida?"

But Phyllida was making her promenade at a careful distance behind her mother. Phyllida was taking the demurest little steps with an arm in her beloved Betty's arm and with a swansdown muff held against her cheek to ward off the shrewd Easterly wind, while almost level with the two maids walked a stately gentleman of a pale complexion. And every time the gentleman stopped to survey the promenaders over the tortoise-shell handle of his ebony walking-stick, Phyllida and Betty stopped to see if it was truly a quarter-past nine o'clock by St. Simon's church tower. And every time the gentleman stopped to flick a speck of dust from his purple sattin sleeve, by a very odd coincidence Miss Courteen always stopped to see if her shoe had really become unbuckled. This tends to show that in spite of all the precautions of Beau Ripple, the innermost fane of Æsculapius had been invaded by a strange god. I doubt Miss Courteen, considered by her mother too young for Chalybeate, was learning to drink of that deep well whose waters will never run dry so long as maids and men frequent its precincts.

The Exquisite Mob continued to circle round the Pump Room because the ritual of the Cure prescribed an hour's steady promenade before breakfast. The scarlet heels of innumerable shoes clicked in unison and the drowsy hum of morning small talk rose and fell upon the February air. All agreed it was a monstrous fine day for the season of the year. All expressed the opinion that by no stretch of imagination could such weather be expected to last. All wished it would indeed, and everybody asked his neighbour whether he intended to grace the next Assembly, and the neighbour invariably replied he had every intention of doing so. Everybody bowed or curtseyed very low to Mr. Ripple and Mr. Ripple had a delightfully well-turned sentence for each of his subjects, as if he would reward their energy in rising so early. Occasionally the Great little Man would condescend to take a pinch of the best Rappee with an elderly gentleman. But as he never took snuff with anybody under the rank of Viscount in the peerage of England and as the peer thus honoured was bound to be above the age of five-and-forty, it happened that the elderly gentleman was always old Lord Vanity, the only individual present who satisfied the double requirement.

"How different this scene is from Hampshire to be sure, though for my part I shall ever protest that those who have eyes to see, let them see, and people who accuse us of wasting our time forget how persistently they look for the arrival of the carrier."

Whether or not Major Tarry and Mr. Moon understood this remark of Mrs. Courteen's, they certainly both agreed with her.

"To-day is Session day," muttered the Justice rather gloomily.

"Well, sir, the magistrates will do their business without you," snapped his rival.

"Not unlikely, sir, not unlikely."

"Well, sir, what the deuce are you grumbling at?"

Mr. Moon replied that he was not grumbling, he was merely commenting; and the two gentlemen bickered on across placid Mrs. Courteen like two children over a hedge.

Meanwhile on the farther side of the Course, as the broad path round the Pump Room was called, Mr. Vernon was still keeping step with Phyllida and Betty, but so delicately did the former tread and so far aloof did he appear that no one suspected him of anything so low as ogling pretty Miss Courteen or her maid. Sometimes he would murmur "When will my charmer be there?" and every time he asked this question, the charmer would send a rippling little laugh into her swansdown muff, and flash a glance over the top towards Betty who would toss her head and imply that such curiosity was worth a long-delayed gratification.

At last Mr. Vernon would take out his laced handkerchief and flick presumably at a ghostly Despair. Phyllida would be prodigiously afraid that her dear Amor (by that name only did she know her lover) was growing unhappy at her hard-hearted treatment and, feeling she had tormented his patience long enough, would gently shake her muff until a piece of paper fluttered slowly to the ground. Mr. Vernon would stoop with indescribable grace and distinction of manner, and while Miss Courteen looked very demure indeed and quite innocent of