Rose made a noise about the encounter, and Laxley was eager for his opportunity, which he saw in the proposed mad gallop.
Now Mr.George Uplift, who usually rode in buckskins whether he was after the fox or fresh air, was out on this particular morning; and it happened that, as the cavalcade wound beneath the down, Mr.George trotted along the ridge.

He was a fat-faced, rotund young squire--a bully where he might be, and an obedient creature enough where he must be--good-humoured when not interfered with; fond of the table, and brimful of all the jokes of the county, the accent of which just seasoned his speech.

He had somehow plunged into a sort of half-engagement with Miss Carrington.

At his age, and to ladies of Miss Carrington's age, men unhappily do not plunge head-foremost, or Miss Carrington would have had him long before.

But he was at least in for it half a leg; and a desperate maiden, on the criminal side of thirty, may make much of that.