SIR PETER ordered his carriage and drove to the house of the stout parson.

That doughty ecclesiastic held a family living a few miles distant from the Hall, and was the only one of the cousins with whom Sir Peter habitually communed on his domestic affairs.
He found the Parson in his study, which exhibited tastes other than clerical.

Over the chimney-piece were ranged fencing-foils, boxing-gloves, and staffs for the athletic exercise of single-stick; cricket-bats and fishing-rods filled up the angles.

There were sundry prints on the walls: one of Mr.Wordsworth, flanked by two of distinguished race-horses; one of a Leicestershire short-horn, with which the Parson, who farmed his own glebe and bred cattle in its rich pastures, had won a prize at the county show; and on either side of that animal were the portraits of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor.

There were dwarf book-cases containing miscellaneous works very handsomely bound; at the open window, a stand of flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom.