During the following week Hampstead went down to Gorse Hall, and hunted two or three days with various packs of hounds within his reach, declaring to himself that, after all, Leicestershire was better than Cumberland, because he was known there, and no one would dare to treat him as Crocker had done. Never before had his democratic spirit received such a shock,—or rather the remnant of that aristocratic spirit which he had striven to quell¹ by the wisdom and humanity of democracy! That a stranger should have dared to talk to him about one of the ladies of his family! No man certainly would do so in Northamptonshire or Leicestershire. He could not quite explain to himself the difference in the localities, but he was quite sure that he was safe from anything of that kind at Gorse Hall.

But he had other matters to think of as he galloped² about the country. How might he best manage to see Marion Fay? His mind was set upon that;—or, perhaps, more dangerously still, his heart. Had he been asked before he would have said that there could have been nothing more easy than for such a one as he to make acquaintance with a young lady in Paradise Row. But now, when he came to look at it, he found that Marion Fay was environed with fortifications and a chevaux-de-frise of difficulties which were apparently³ impregnable. He could not call at No. 17, and simply ask for Miss Fay. To do so he must be a proficient⁴ in that impudence⁵, the lack of which created so many difficulties for him. He thought of finding out the Quaker chapel⁶ in the City, and there sitting out the whole proceeding,—unless desired to leave the place,—with the Quixotic idea of returning to Holloway with her in an omnibus. As he looked at this project all round, he became sure that the joint⁷ journey in an omnibus would never be achieved. Then he imagined that Mrs. Roden might perhaps give him aid. But with what a face could such a one as he ask such a one as Mrs. Roden to assist him in such an enterprise? And yet, if anything were to be done, it must be done through Mrs. Roden,—or, at any rate, through Mrs. Roden's house. As to this too there was a new difficulty. He had not actually quarrelled with George Roden, but the two had parted on the road as though there were some

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