UNDIVIDED
The late autumn was merging into early winter, that pleasantest of all seasons for those sportsmen who exult in the stride of a good horse, and the stirring music of the hound. Even in Pall Mall true lovers of the chase felt stealing over them the annual epidemic, which winter after winter rages with unabated virulence, incurable by any known remedy. A sufferer—it would be a misnomer to call him a patient—from this November malady was gaping at a print-shop window, near the bottom of St. James's Street, wholly engrossed in the performances of a very bright bay horse, with a high-coloured rider, flying an impossible fence, surrounded by happy hunting-grounds, where perspective seemed unknown.
"D'ye think he'll get over, Bill?" said a familiar voice, that could only belong to Daisy Walters, who had stolen unperceived behind his friend.
"Not if the fool on his back can pull him into it," answered the other indignantly. And these comrades, linking arms, turned eastward, in the direction of their club.
"How's the Missis?" said Bill, whose boast it was that he never forgot his manners.
"Fit as a fiddle," replied the happy husband. "Had a long letter from Molly this morning. Sent her best love—no, scratched that out, and desired to be kindly remembered to you."
Molly, called after Lady Mary, was the eldest and, in Bill's opinion, the handsomest daughter, so he changed the subject with rather a red face.