"Young Brett" was a new ensign, white-haired
to a strange degree, and half a child in
appearance, but he was full of admiration for
men of experience, like the Mentor beside him.
The Mentor beside him had his legs upon a chair,
his shell-jacket open, and on his lips was a steady
air of composed indifference and almost habitual
disgust.

The fledgeling ensign's enthusiasm was not yet
chilled. He was describing a hunt.

"Then went through the Old Field," he said,
"up to the brook which runs into the mill-race,
where there is such a stiff jump—and such a fall!
You never saw such a business, every second
fellow down."

"They don't know how to ride," said Captain
Fermor, tranquilly. "All tailors, every man of
'em."

"I went over with the rest," said the white boy,
a little ruefully, "with such a ducking! Some one
pulled me out. That beast I rode pulled so."

"Some way it always is the beast we ride,"
said the other, with the same inert smile. "It's
not a country for a gentleman to hunt over. I
had to give it up myself. You know I've seen
the proper sort of thing. Who were out? the
usual set?"

"The usual lot; and that Hanbury, as usual,
leading. He got over the brook. But then he
rides such horses!"

The right side of the other's lip went up a little
at this speech, and he raised himself in his chair.

"Of course he did! These country fellows
can scramble over every drain in the place. /
have broken a horse's back before now over a
little furrow. Any fool can make a show on a
great strong brute that knows every stone and
hedge in the place. I don't care to lay mind to
studying their topography. If I chose, I suppose
I could do it with the best of 'em. But it wouldn't
repay me the trouble."

Captain Fermor had an eye-glass which he used
occasionally, being a little near-sighted; but he
had another moral bit of crystal, through which he
unconsciously viewed his own personal nature.
It was a sort of polite and social Pantheism. He
really fancied that his "ro ?y?," as the Germans
put it, pervaded all things, and that everything
that was said or done, in which he was called on
to speak or do, must have necessary reference to
him.

"But he rode like a man," said the white-haired
youth, with a thoughtful admiration; "all through,
the same—never thrown out a moment. I
wonder what he gave for that horse? Two two
nought?"

"Bred him, you may be sure—bred him to sell.
That's his line. It's the way with all these
low farmer fellows."

"But you recollect the parson said the other
day he was of good family—Sir Thomas Hanbury
—or Somebody like that."

"That don't make him a good huntsman,"
said Captain Ferrnor; then added, with a
characteristic want of logic, "it's nothing to me
who he is or what he is—/ don't care, I'm
sure."

The white ensign, still following his hero with
a smile of admiration as he flew over a jump, went
on the same key of panegyric. "And then
coming home dead beat, would you believe it? I
saw his horse at the gate of that terrace where
those girls live—Raglan-terrace—and he himself
with them in the window, as fresh as if he were
out of his bath."

Captain Fermor gave a sort of short contemptuons
snort or sniff, and his fawn-coloured
moustache, which hung over his mouth like the
eaves of a thatched cottage, went up again. But
he said nothing.

"They say he's going to be married to one of
them," said the ensign; "the younger one, so the
doctor told me to-day. But don't say I said it,
because it may be only a bit of gossip."

The way in which Captain Fermor opened his
aluminium-looking eyes on the youth, was
something to see. "Why should I?" he said. "Whom
should I tell? I suppose I shall have forgotten
it in ten minutes. What on earth, my good child,
can you suppose these people and their stories
are to me? It is very well for you, who have
seen no life as yet. You may be quite easy in
your mind, and tell your apothecary or parson—
whose names, thank God, I don't know—that
their secret is quite safe with me—because quite
forgotten."

The boy coloured up, and became pink at his
forehead, contrasting oddly with his white hair.
Captain Fermor, really pleased with himself with
having spoken with such success and such an
under-current of quiet sarcasm, became of a
sudden quite free and good humoured. He took
out his pipe and his tobacco-pouch, and began,
with an agreeable leisureness, to fill it.

"And so you saw these girls? They are pretty,"
he said, making that allowance.

"Yes, yes!" said the other, eagerly; "there's
one very handsome. I wish—I wish," he added,
"I knew her. But they won't know people."

"I could have known them fifty times over if
I wanted," said Captain Fermor, trying whether
his pipe drew freely. "There were people
plaguing me a dozen times. But I don't care
for that sort of thing. It's not my line, you see.
Made it a rule not to make new acquaintances
more than I can manage. People say to me, I
wish you would let us introduce you to the—
the—what do you call them?"

"Manuels! Manuels!" said the youth.

"But I don't want to. I don't care. There
are fellows who want to know all the world.
I'm not one of that sort."

"O!" said the young ensign, with an unconscious
piteousness. "If I could only manage it!
They are so handsome; and if I could get to
know them!"

"Out of the question, my good fellow," said
Captain Fermor, becoming cold again. "I never
do that sort of thing, unless for friends, you
know. Besides, take my advice; don't trouble