dozen and a half had assembled, either part of the complement of the house or visitors for the day, to witness the sport from outside; and when we paired off to the dining-room-to every man a damsel or two, to make or to be made a fool of for the next hour or so-I could not but confess that our casual investment of half a dozen couple of babblers, skirters, and rabbit-worriers, had proved a matter of greater importance than the most sanguine of us had originally anticipated.

Of my own partner for the day I need say but little; she was but moderately ornamental, and was doubtless in her own sphere to some extent useful. She was pious and generous-at least she gave me a tract to read, and pressed me much to subscribe to a new society for

the purification of negroes. She was middle-aged; had an excellent memory, for she knew something about the life, career, and expectations of every lady in the room, and could tell any amount of anecdotes of them, which anecdotes were so far interesting that they savoured invariably of evil-doing rather than of good, and usually managed to couple three or four other persons in the narrated misconduct; so that the ramifications of biography into which Miss Jocasta Starch (that was her name) branched off would have filled a good-sized volume by the time that I had got down some soup, two excellent cutlets, some salmi aux truffes, a few glasses of champagne, and had of course been indefatigable in ministering to the personal wants of my fair but garrulous neighbour.

But when I had soothed my appetite, which had been sharpened somewhat by my ride, I began to look about me, and one of the first questions which I ventured to put, content hitherto to dovetail my partner' loquacity with common-place utterances-such as "Really!" "You don't say so!" "How strange!" "How absurd!” “How satirical you are!" ad nauseam-was,

"Can you tell me, Miss Starch, the name of the young lady who is sitting between Cresswell and Vainables?"

"You mean that girl with the man with a black beard! Oh! she's Miss Barbara Macdoodle! Her father was a major in a regiment, and he ran away with an actress at Liverpool, and she-I mean Barbara Macdoodle-she was engaged to little Mr. Bilk, the man with spectacles at the end of the table; but she

"I beg you pardon for interrupting you, Miss Starch, but I mean a young lady in a riding-habbit sitting next to a gentleman with no beard, and only a- ?"

"Oh! yes, of course, Mrs. Blazer; that's her husband, the little man with a red nose, and brown beard, two places on your left. They say, mind I don't say so, that she is rather fast, and she rides a good deal, though she never lets little Blazer go out with hounds. That is young Patent sitting next her, addresses her anxiously; very sweet after her, so everybody says; of course I mean only in a friendly way; and mind, I don't say so at all, and they say that he was going to be married to Miss Nelly Cooke, who has sixty thousand pounds of her own, only she was jealous of his way of going on with Mrs. Blazer, and so she broke-"

"I must apologise once more, but the young lady I mean is the only other lady in a riding-habit; almost opposite us, sitting between two brother officers of my own regiment."

"Ah! I see who you mean-that there girl with a big mouth, showing her teeth so frightfully. She's Miss Harper, Mr. Harper's niece; rather a forward girl—a flirt, some people say, but of course I don't say so for an instant."

I felt rather nettled at this definition, for I had been admiring the damsel, my vis à vis, for the last ten minutes. Miss Starch's criticism sesmed a direct slur upon my own taste and judgment, but I quietly said

"Do you think her mouth is so big? it strikes me that is only because she was laughing so heartily just now that she showed her teeth; there, look at her now, she closed it!"

But unfortunately Cresswell addressed Miss Harper again at this juncture, and she again lit up with a bright sunny smile.

Miss Starch said contemptuously

"Of course I can't tell, Dr. Splints, men have such different tastes and opinions from women: some people actually admire pug noses and red hair, for instance."

Miss Starch's beak was highly aquiline, and her hair an honest, dusty, rusty brown. Still I would lay the shirt on my back that never in her best days could she have shown a candle to the sunny face in front of me. I didn't like to say so; besides, I am not a betting man, so I only replied

"Of course it's only a question of taste, I didn't mean to contradict you. I merely ventured a sort of excuse for the width to which Miss Harper's mouth was for the moment opened; but after all, we need not discuss her face. Tell me, who is she? Does she live in the neighbourhood?"

"She lives here with Mr. Harper, her uncle, her father died some twelve-months ago. Somebody-I forget who at this moment, told me they thought he drank himself to death. I dare say he did; it's quite likely. Her-"

"Why so likely ?" I interrupted, disappointed to think that there might be an innate disposition to intemperance in the childish face in front of me.

"Likely! why should it not be? Men are often doing these sort of things. There was old Mr. Bust, one of the richest brokers in the town, I now for certain, on the very best authority, he had delirium tremens the other day, and as for the elder Casher of the County Bank, I hear he is killing himself with opium, and I know-"

"she

"Yes, I quite agree with you, Miss Starch, it is a very sad thing. Well, and so Miss Harper lives here now with her uncle, does she?" "She does for the present-I daresay she won't stay long. She's an heiress; a hundred thousand of her own when she's of age,' added with unmistakable venom, "and is sure to make a goose of herself before long. Somebody is sure to pick her up for her money, and she's so vain, she'll think it's herself, and not her money the men are after when they pay her attention. I know better."

"Do you, really; but you don't mean the two gentlemen sitting by her just now, do you? You surely know nothing of them or their disposition, do you? I did not think you had ever met them before."

"Not them in particular, but all men are just alike. I mean, when they run after heiresses. Some more champagne, if you please, thank you!”

"And can Miss Harper ride well?" continued I, determined to pump my loquacious charge, however virulent might be her personal dislike, for reasons best known to herself, of my bonny vis à vis.

"Ride! I suppose she calls it riding; galloping like a horse-breaker all over the country, with only a groom to attend upon her, a regular fast-going lady. No daughter of mine should ever do like that. Why, she as near as possible rode over me one afternoon last week, tearing over Cropper's Green just as I was engaged in good works, coming out of a cottage where there lived a poor miserable sinner who had the wickedness to say, when I gave her some tracts, and told her I had brought her spiritual food, that she didn't care for no spirits so much as a bit of butcher's meat, if I would give her some. The ingratitude and wickedness of the poor are something frightful. And this young hussy splashed by me, full gallop, and then to make matters worse came back again, pretending to beg my pardon, prancing her horse about, horrid vicious thing, till I was so frightened that I ran away for shelter into the next cottage, where a horrid man was beating his wife, and— gracious bless me !-they're all going, and you are going too, Dr. Splints! I shall come and see you start, I'm so fond of horses. Oh, dear, there's some horrid man trod on my dress, and torn all the gathers out; please give me your arm, I'll go into the waiting-room and ring for the housemaid and some pins. Thank you. Isn't it provoking, just as I was going to see you mount your horse; I'm so disappointed. I really must come and see the dogs and the horses some other day. Good bye, Dr. Splints, we shall meet again no doubt; good bye!" (To be continued.)

THE OXFORD HORSE SHOW.

The nags and agricultural horses were judged in the same ring, with a rope run down the middle, forming a temporary division, as at Bury St. Edmunds and other meetings-a very good plan, if a rail took the place of the rope. To the latter, we have always objected, as being dangerous both to horses and riders, or more particularly to foals. It was, indeed, almost in the adjoining meadow that we saw Conolly, the jockey, fall over the ropes and meet with his death, for this accident ultimately proved the cause of it; and glad were we to see Mr. Robert Leeds, who was assisting in the circle, order the rope to be removed as the brood mares and foals came in, although for the time this stayed the cart-horse division from proceeding with their work. The boxes were very good, but if a little more attention had been paid to the fastening, Go ahead's foal would not have been injured by the end of a large projecting screw. In other respects the management of the ring and the telegraph board was commendable, but the fashion of allowing the little-great with their pitiful satellites to intrude and exhibit themselves in the ring as they did on Tuesday, and with their broad well-stuffed carcases to impede the view of members, and those that pay and come long distances to see horses, is a monstrous abuse, or, perhaps, rather impertinence. Some of these intruders were the representatives of

county families, and very good people, too, in their proper places, but who, when forcing themselves into the ring where they have no right to be, remind one more of "pushing young persons" in some business concern than men who should be possessed of that gentlemanly feeling, devoid of selfishness, that kept hundreds of their superiors on the outside of the ring. It would be as well, we think, if some of these great men would recollect that, like many big horses, they have nothing to commend them, not even their size, and so keep their places. "Manners, you baste!" shouts a groom in charge of a thorough-bred stallion, who comes plunging out of his box, as the clock strikes eight, and goes rearing and neighing into the ring, regardless of his number and position, like the perfect gentleman that he is, for it is no other than that handsome old son of Orlando, The Chevalier d'Industrie, from Swacliffe Paddocks. Like most of us, the Chevalier is not without his faults, but they are counterbalanced by good points and we would rather, though the old fellow is a little shrunk since we last saw him, have the favour of sending one mare to him than forty to this short, piggy, small armed, coachy-stepping Laughing Stock, with his light girth, though he is made up and stuffed a great deal better than Dickens' old raven, Grip. Still this is altogether a capital class of thorough-bred stallions, with thirteen entries, and twelve of them before the judgesthe absentee being Major Barlow's Deerfoot, the hero of Saffron Walden and Sudbury. That brown, with the Roman nose and somewhat of the Dutchman's head and middle, is Schiedam, who would make a useful country horse; while the pick of the basket is Knowsley, with a strain of Stockwell and Orlando in him, and a very compact showy animal, if those strong beefy shoulders are not exactly huntinglike to our eye, as for his top we fancy those arms fall off a bit above the knee. Otherwise you might trot about to many shows before you saw anything better than the muscular yellow bay. Then this elegant nice-topped one, rather high on the leg and light of bone for a hunter sire is Lord Portsmouth's Sydmonton, a fair performer on the turf, but out of his element here. About Lord Craven's Blackdown again there is something taking, but his forehand wants correcting; and Redoubt, though neat, with length, and by Artillery, a hunter sire, is not quite so himself, though still a useful nag. This chesnut is Petruchio, that it would be love's labour lost to cross with Bonny Kate, the shrew, or anything else, whilst possessed of such a neck and shoulders-that is with any expectation of getting a hunter. The great and grand-looking horse, with length on short limbs, but rather crooked in his forelegs, or as our Norfolk friend calls it, "cromy," though he looks like carrying Sir Watkin, and is one of the most powerful-looking thorough-breds we recollect, has hardly quality enough; nevertheless with some sets of judges, those lovers of an eyefull, who gave Sir George Cholmondely Angelus prize after prize, we think General Peel might have stood a good chance of returning to Swacliffe victorious. Lord Fitzharding's Commissioner is of fair form, but there is not much of him, while Mr. Casson, the owner of the well-known prize horse Motley, in Sincerity by Red Hart has a very useful country horse, if his shoulders do not quite please us for hunting purposes; while he is rather shelly in his back, and his limbs, though great, are fleshy below knee. This varmint one-eyed old horse, with the lengthy middle on the short leg, who

is trying to attract the attention of the judges by hammering away with the stringhalt is Simple Simon, whose Truelove, one William, holds out at Woodstock. To sum up, we think the second and third places might have been better filled, and on the whole that it was more of a coaching than a hunting verdict. Still the award goes quite with the let of the late Lord Glasgow's stallions in November, when Lord Norreys took Knowsley at 820 guineas, and Mr. Gulliver General Peel at 600 guineas-the two top prices. Knowsley is now at Tetsworth, or Ryecote, where Marsk, the sire of Eclipse, once stood, and where we have seen many a fox found. There was a very poor show of roadster stallions, with the exception of the first and second, Ambition and Sportsman, who are as well known in the ring as prize takers as the High Street is in Oxford; while in pony stallions the handsome Perfection, the Islington and Sudbury prize pony, was beaten by the neat good-stepping Islington prize cob, Sir George, but as it was for pony stallions we think Perfection answered to the description the best, and ought to have won. Now we come to the hunters and hackneys, which, with the exception of a prize horse here and there, csntributed to one of the greatest failures since that of Overend and Gurney. How did it happen? Was it a want of pluck! for many did we hear say, "Oh, I wish I had sent mine!" or, "I should have sent old so-and-so if I had known there had been such a lot; but I thought this and I thought that were coming," as think what they may, the show in this respect was a disgrace to the county. What would that tub of a man in clerical hunting costume, old gruff Griff Lloyd-so well known in Oxford and with the Bicester of thirty years ago-have thought of such an exhibition? What would he have said to improving breed of horses? Why-"You should have seen my old fleabitten grey and my brown horse, they were something like weightcarriers!" Or the late Mr. Drake, that model both of a Master-ofhounds and a gentleman, would have told you, though no boaster, that one of his whips rode a Master Richard horse, that, for form or pace, would have distanced the lot. The Messrs. Coxes, of Craig's Court, more familiarly known as "the long Coxes," and their worthy parent, would not have looked at such cattle as hunters; while Farmer Roberts, of Waterperry's old grey, and mild-speaking Dick Harding's strain of Master Henry, were very gems of horseflesh to the things shown here. There still is Tollit, the dealer, better known as Joe Tollit-Palmam qui meruit Tollit-who sends nothing for the honour of Oxford, although looking as dark and wiry as ever, that we fancy, in spite of a certain tenderness of the toes, we are again breathing the air of thirty years ago! But the deception is gone, for there stand a couple looking rather long in the tooth and "cromy" about the knees, and they can only give us a year or two; while others we are told went straight and well as long as they could, and then to ground, in some village churchyard, where that lover of darkness, the owl, wakes the night with shrill quivering notes as he shrieks over them a requiem in a long continuous whoo-oo-oo-oo-hoop! We ourselves, however, still love the light, and will return to the judges and the hunting brood mares, headed by that model of a hunter old Goahead, that we have so often put together in this paper, and that in the company now she is, there is about as much merit in placing first as there would be picking out a sovereign