“If the night were moonlight,” said Miss Meek, as she opened a shutter and peeped out into the darkness, “I 'd say he was trying those fences we have laid out for the hurdle-race.”
“By Jove, Jim, that is a shrewd thought!” said Lord Charles, forgetting that he was addressing her by a familiar sobriquet he never used before company.
“You have a bet with him, Charley?” said Upton.
“Yes, we have all manner of bets on the race, and I 'll have one with you, if you like it,—an even fifty that Tom turns up 'all right and no accident,' after this bolt.”
“Ah, my Lord, you 're in the secret, then!” said Aunt Fanny, whose experiences of sporting transactions, derived from “the West,” induced her to suspect that a wager contained a trap-fall.
A very cool stare was the only acknowledgment he deigned to return to this speech, while Mrs. Kennyfeck looked unutterable reproaches at her unhappy relative.
“I call the present company to witness,” said Sir Harvey Upton, “that if Tom has to come to an untimely end, he has bequeathed to me his brown cob pony, Batter.”
“I protest against the gift,” said Miss Kennyfeck; “Mr. Linton told me, if he were killed in the steeplechase on Tuesday next, I should have Batter.”
“That was a special reservation, Miss Kennyfeck,” said the Chief Justice; “so that if his death did not occur in the manner specified, the deed or gift became null and void.”
“I only know,” said Miss Meek, “that Mr. Linton said, as we came back from the hurdle-field,—'Remember, Batter is yours if—if—'” She hesitated and grew red, and then stopped speaking, in evident shame and confusion.