Master of Fox-hounds, Shadowbrook, appeared with his wife, the celebrated beauty, Agatha Sprowl, _née_ Van Guilder. 

Sprowl, now immensely large and fat, had few cares in life beyond an anxious apprehension concerning the durability of his own digestion. However, he was still able to make a midnight mouthful of a Welsh rarebit on a hot mince-pie, and wash it down with a quart of champagne, and so the world went very well with him, even if it wabbled a trifle for his handsome wife. 

"She's lovely enough," said Colonel Hyssop, gallantly, "to set every star in heaven wabbling." To which the bull-necked Major assented with an ever-hopeless attempt to bend at the waistband. 

Meanwhile the Rev. Amasa Munn and his flock, the Shining Band, arrived at Foxville in six farm wagons, singing "Roll, Jordan!" 

Of their arrival Sprowl was totally unconscious, the Colonel having forgotten to inform him of the threatened invasion.

The members of the Sagamore Club heard the news next morning at a late breakfast. Major Brent, who had been fishing early up-stream, bore the news, and delivered it in an incoherent bellow. 

"What d'ye mean by that?" demanded Colonel Hyssop, setting down his cocktail with unsteady fingers. 

"Mean?" roared the Major; "I mean that Munn and a lot o' women are sitting on the river-bank and singing 'Home Again'!" 

The news jarred everybody, but the effect of it upon the president, Peyster Sprowl, appeared to be out of all proportion to its gravity. That gentleman's face was white as death; and the Major noticed it. 

"You'll have to rid us of this mob," said the Major, slowly. 

Sprowl lifted his heavy, overfed face from his plate. "I'll attend to it," he said, hoarsely, and swallowed a pint of claret.

"I think it is amusing," said Agatha Sprowl, looking across the table at Coursay. 

"Amusing, madam!" burst out the Major. "They'll be doing their laundry in our river next!" 

"Soapsuds in my favorite pools!" bawled the Colonel. "Damme if I'll permit it!" 

"Sprowl ought to settle them," said Lansing, good-naturedly. "It may cost us a few thousands, but Sprowl will do the work this time as he did it 

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