ed, there was a certain fierceness of
maidenhood in her.

But all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the
scene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and
she exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with
her. The color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen
with a strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had
never yet ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it,
and so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and
her uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent
exercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other
parts of the country, no lady of good position followed the Wessex
hunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby, the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been
a kitchenmaid and still spoke like one. This last argument had some
effect on Gwendolen, and had kept her halting between her desire to
assert her freedom and her horror of being classed with Mrs. Gadsby.

Some of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally
went to see the hounds throw off; but it happened that none of them
were present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby,
with her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not
visible to make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check
on the animal stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the
hounds, the pawing of the horses, the varying voices of men, the
movement hither and thither of vivid color on the background of green
and gray stillness:--that utmost excitement of the coming chase which
consists in feeling something like a combination of dog and horse, with
the superadded thrill of social vanities and consciousness of
centaur-power which belongs to humankind.

Rex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept
nearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with
acquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively
horses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as
effectually as a revolving lever.

"Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth," said Lord
Brackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained
pink, with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened
deluge seem of no consequence. "We shall have a first-rate run. A pity
you didn't go with us. Have you ever tried your little c