With which summary of his merits, “Beauty,” who felt himself to be a master in those two arts, but thought himself a bad fellow out of them, sauntered away to join the Seraph and the rest of his guests; his father’s words pursuing him a little, despite his carelessness, for they had borne an unwelcome measure of truth.

“Royal can hit hard,” his thoughts continued. “’A pauper and a Guardsman!’ By Jove!  It’s true enough; but he made me so.  They brought me up as if I had a million coming to me, and turned me out among the cracks to take my running with the best of them—­and they give me just about what pays my groom’s book!  Then they wonder that a fellow goes to the Jews.  Where the deuce else can he go?”

And Bertie, whom his gains the day before had not much benefited, since his play-debts, his young brother’s needs, and the Zu-Zu’s insatiate little hands were all stretched ready to devour them without leaving a sovereign for more serious liabilities, went, for it was quite early morning, to act the M. F. H. in his fathers’ stead at the meet on the great lawns before the house, for the Royallieu “lady-pack” were very famous in the Shires, and hunted over the same country alternate days with the Quorn.  They moved off ere long to draw the Holt Wood, in as open a morning and as strong a scenting wind as ever favored Melton Pink.

A whimper and “gone away!” soon echoed from Beebyside, and the pack, not letting the fox hang a second, dashed after him, making straight for Scraptoft.  One of the fastest things up-wind that hounds ever ran took them straight through the Spinnies, past Hamilton Farm, away beyond Burkby village, and down into the valley of the Wreake without a check, where he broke away, was headed, tried earths, and was pulled down scarce forty minutes from the find.  The pack then drew Hungerton foxhole blank, drew Carver’s spinnies without a whimper; and lastly, drawing the old familiar Billesden Coplow, had a short, quick burst with a brace of cubs, and returning, settled themselves to a fine dog fox that was raced an hour-and-half, hunted slowly for fifty minutes, raced again another hour-and-quarter, sending all the field to their “second horses”; and after a clipping chase through the cream of the grass country, nearly saved his brush in the twilight when the scent was lost in a rushing hailstorm, but had the “little ladies” laid on again like wildfire, and was killed with the “who-whoop!” ringing far and away over Glenn Gorse, after a glorious run—­thirty miles in and out—­with pace that tired the best of them.

A better day’s sport even the Quorn had never had in all its brilliant annals, and faster things the Melton men themselves had never wanted:  both those who love the “quickest thing you ever knew—­thirty minutes without a check—­such a pace!” and care little whether the finale be “killed” or “broke away,” and those of the old fashion, who prefer “long day, you know, steady as old time; the beauties stuck like wax through fourteen parishes, as I live; six hours, if it were a minute; horses dead-beat; positively walked, you know; no end of a day!” but must have the fatal “who-whoop” as conclusion—­both of these, the “new style and the old,” could not but be content with the doings of the “demoiselles” from start to finish.