"No; he wasn't dead. But of course you know that now. He broke an arm and two ribs, and got rather a bad squeeze. He was just behind me, you know, and I had to wait for him. I lost the run, and had to see Harriet Tristram go away with the best lead any one has had to a fast thing this year. That's an uncommon nasty place at the back of Monkton Grange."
"I hope, Peregrine, you don't think too much about Harriet Tristram."
"Think of her! who? I? Think of her in what sort of a way? I think she goes uncommonly well to hounds."
"That may be, but I should not wish to see you pin your happiness on any lady that was celebrated chiefly for going well to hounds."
"Do you mean marry her?" and Peregrine immediately made a strong comparison in his mind between Miss Tristram and Madeline Staveley.
"Yes; that's what I did mean."
"I wouldn't have her if she owned every fox-cover in the county. No, by Jove! I know a trick worth two of that. It's jolly enough to see them going, but as to being in love with them—in that sort of way—"
"You are quite right, my boy; quite right. It is not that that a man wants in a wife."
"No," said Peregrine, with a melancholy cadence in his voice, thinking of what it was that he did want. And so they sat sipping their wine. The turn which the conversation had taken had for the moment nearly put Lady Mason out of the young man's head.
"You would be very young to marry yet," said the baronet.