twenty minutes, and bringing a savage under
his control in thirty-five, the Royal Humane
Society's medal will have been given him in
vain. If India perseveres in using such
spiked bits as have been handed round his
pupil circle, it is high time that he crossed
the Desert on a fresh mission of mercy.

MY LADY LUDLOW.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

I THINK my lady was not aware of Mr.
Horner's views on education (as making
men into more useful members of society) or
of the practice to which he was putting his
precepts, in taking Harry Gregson as pupil and
protégé; if, indeed, she was aware of Harry's
distinct existence at all, until the following
unfortunate occasion. The anteroom, which
was a kind of business place for my lady to
receive her steward and tenants in, was
surrounded by shelves. I cannot call them
book- shelves, though there were many books
on them; but the contents of the volumes
were principally manuscript, and relating to
details connected with the Hanbury property.
There were also one or two dictionaries,
gazetteers, works of reference on the management
of property; all of a very old date
(the dictionary was Bayley's, I remember;
we had a great Johnson in my lady's room,
but where the lexicographers differed, she
generally preferred Bayley).

In this antechamber a footman generally
sate, awaiting orders from my lady; for she
clung to the grand old customs, and despised
any bells, except her own little handbell, as
modern inventions; she would have her
people always within summons of this silvery
bell, or her scarce less silvery voice. This
man had not the sinecure you might imagine.
He had to reply to the private entrance;
what we should call the back-door in a
smaller house. As none came to the front-door
but my lady, and those of the county
whom she honoured by visiting, and her
nearest acquaintance of this kind lived eight
miles (of bad road) off, the majority of
comers knocked at the nail-studded terrace-door;
not to have it opened (for open it
stood, by my lady's orders, winter and
summer, so that the snow often drifted into
the back-hall, and lay there in heaps when
the weather was severe), but to summon
some one to receive their message, or carry
their request to be allowed to speak to my
lady. I remember it was long before Mr.
Gray could be made to understand that the
great door was only opened on state occasions,
and even to the last he would as soon come
in by that as the terrace entrance. I had
been received there on my first setting foot
over my lady's threshold; every stranger
was led in by that way the first time they
came; but after that (with the exceptions I
have named) they went round by the
terrace, as it were by instinct. It was an
assistance to this instinct to be aware that
from time immemorial, the magnificent
and fierce Hanbury wolf-hounds, which
were extinct in every other part of the
island, had been and still were kept chained
in the front quadrangle, where they bayed
through a great part of the day and night,
and were always ready with their deep,
savage growl at the sight of every person and
thing, excepting the man who fed them, my
lady's carriage and four, and my lady herself.
It was pretty to see her small figure go up
to the great, crouching brutes, thumping the
flags with their heavy, wagging tails, and
slobbering in an ecstacy of delight, at her
light approach and soft caress. She had no
fear of them; but she was a Hanbury born,
and the tale went, that they and their kind knew
all Hanburys instantly, and acknowledged
their supremacy, ever since the ancestors of
the breed had been brought from the East
by the great Sir Urian Hanbury, who lay
with his legs crossed on the altar-tomb in
the church. Moreover, it was reported that,
not fifty years before, one of these dogs had
eaten up a child, which had inadvertently
strayed within reach of its chain. So you
may imagine how most people preferred the
terrace-door. Mr. Gray did not seem to care
for the dogs. It might be absence of mind,
for I have heard of his starting away from
their sudden spring when he had unwittingly
walked within reach of their chains; but it
could hardly have been absence of mind,
when one day he went right up to one of
them, and patted him in the most friendly
manner, the dog meanwhile looking pleased,
and affably wagging his tail, just as if Mr.
Gray had been a Hanbury. We were all
very much puzzled by this, and to this day I
have not been able to account for it.

But now let us go back to the terrace-door,
and the footman sitting in the antechamber.

One morning we heard a parleying which
rose to such a vehemence, and lasted for so
long, that my lady had to ring her hand-bell
twice before the footman heard it.

"What is the matter, John?" asked she,
when he entered.

"A little boy, my lady, who says he comes
from Mr. Horner, and must see your
ladyship. Impudent little lad!" (this last to
himself.)

"What does he want?"

"That's just what I have asked him, my
lady, but he won't tell me, please your
ladyship."

"It is, probably, some message from Mr.
Horner," said Lady Ludlow, with just a
shade of annoyance in her manner; for it
was against all etiquette to send a verbal
message to her, and by such a messenger
too!

"No! please your ladyship, I asked him if
he had any message, and he said no, he had
none; but he must see your ladyship for all
that."