‘How do you do.  Mr. Sponge?’ said her ladyship, tendering him her hand with an elegant curtsey.

‘How are you, Mr. (hiccup) Sponge?’ asked Sir Harry, offering his; ’I believe you know the (hiccup) company?’ continued he, waving his hand around; ’Miss (hiccup) Glitters, Captain (hiccup) Quod, Captain Bouncey, Mr. (hiccup) Bugles, Captain (hiccup) Seedeybuck, and so on’; whereupon Miss Glitters curtsied, the gentlemen bobbed their heads and drew near our hero, who had now stationed himself before the fire.

‘Coldish to-night,’ said he, stooping, and placing both hands to the bars.  ‘Coldish,’ repeated he, rubbing his hands and looking around.

[Illustration]

‘It generally is about this time of year, I think,’ observed Miss Glitters, who was quite ready to enter for our friend.

‘Hope it won’t stop hunting,’ said Mr. Sponge.

‘Hope not,’ replied Sir Harry; ‘would be a bore if it did.’

‘I wonder you gentlemen don’t prefer hunting in a frost,’ observed Miss Howard; ’one would think it would be just the time you’d want a good warming.’

‘I don’t agree with you, there,’ replied Mr. Sponge, looking at her, and thinking she was not nearly so pretty as Miss Glitters.

‘Do you hunt to-morrow?’ asked he of Sir Harry, not having been able to obtain any information at the stables.

‘(Hiccup) to-morrow?  Oh, I dare say we shall,’ replied Sir Harry, who kept his hounds as he did his carriages, to be used when wanted.  ’Dare say we shall,’ repeated he.

But though Sir Harry spoke thus encouragingly of their prospects, he took no steps, as far as Mr. Sponge could learn, to carry out the design.  Indeed, the subject of hunting was never once mentioned, the conversation after dinner, instead of being about the Quorn, or the Pytchley, or Jack Thompson with the Atherstone, turning upon the elegance and lighting of the Casinos in the Adelaide Gallery and Windmill Street, and the relative merits of those establishments over the Casino de Venise in High Holborn.  Nor did morning produce any change for the better, for Sir Harry and all the captains came down in their usual flashy broken-down player-looking attire, their whole thoughts being absorbed in arranging for a pool at billiards, in which the ladies took part.  So with billiards, brandy, and ‘’baccy,’—­’’baccy,’ brandy, and billiards, varied with an occasional stroll about the grounds, the non-sporting inmates of Nonsuch House beguiled the time, much to Mr. Sponge’s disgust, whose soul was on fire and eager for the fray.  The reader’s perhaps being the same, we will skip Christmas and pass on to New Year’s Day.

CHAPTER LXII

A FAMILY BREAKFAST