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tion of sudden disappointment, even when the long-desired first step towards success in life was so near. He was ambitious in his silent English way, and there was a strength of will behind the fine outlines of his features which really gave them all their charm and distinction. His clear-cut bronze countenance was but the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Nothing small or mean was inscribed there. One felt in looking at him—“He was a man; take him for all in all,” and full of a man’s ambitions, perhaps even of worldliness of the larger kind. The prospect of congenial work, and not less delightful play, the chance of measuring himself against some of the keenest intellects in a brilliant Indian circle, the new and exciting society, the variety of “big sport,” were all alluring to the ambitious side of his nature; yet he felt as homesick as a schoolboy. He longed to see them all again at home—his father, the fine old hunting squire who practised in real life all the virtues of an obituary notice, yet knew more about a horse than any other man in the county; his brilliant diplomatic mother, still young and pretty, and adored by everyone—an adoration she passed on with interest to her big boy; even the old house in the Cotswold Hills, and the dogs and horses, sud-