HOLLY WREATHS AND ROSE CHAINS.
I.
THE COLONEL OF THE "WHITE FAVORS" AND CECIL ST. AUBYN.
"What are you going to do with yourself this Christmas, old fellow?" said Vivian, of the 60th Hussars: the White Favors we call them, because, after Edgehill, Henriette Maria gave their Colonel a white rosette off her own dress to hang to his sword-knot, and all the 60th have like ribbons to this day. "If you've nothing better to do," continued their present Lieutenant-Colonel, "Come down with me to Deerhurst. The governor'll be charmed to see you; my mother has always some nice-looking girls there; and, as we keep the hounds, I can promise you some good hunting with the Harkaway."
"I shall be delighted," said I, who, being in the —— Lancers, had been chained by the leg at Kensington the whole year, and, of all the woes the most pitiable, had not been able to get leave for either the 12th or the 1st; but while my chums were shooting among the turnips, or stalking royals in Blackmount Forest, I had been tied to town, a solitary unit in Pall-Mall, standing on the forsaken steps of the U. S., or pacing my hack through the dreary desert of Hyde Park—like Macaulay's New Zealander gazing on the ruins of London Bridge.
"Very well," continued Vivian, "come down with me next week, and you can send your horses with Steevens and my stud. The governor could mount you well enough, but I never hunt with so much pleasure as when I'm on Qui Vive; so I dare say you, like me, prefer your own horses. I only hope we shan't have a confounded 'black frost;' but we must take our chance of the weather. I think you'll like my sisters; they're just about half my age. Lots of children came in between, but were providentially nipped in the bud."
"Are they pretty?"