ng-room when he entered--her stately head regally
uplifted in the midst of a group of less magnificent demoiselles--a
statuesque blonde, with abundant ringlets of flaxen lightness, eyes of
turquoise blue, and a determined mouth and chin.

Sir Everard paid his respects to his host and hostess, and sought her
side at once.

"Almost late," she said, with a brilliant, welcoming smile, giving him
her dainty little hand; "and George Grosvenor has been looking this
way, and pulling his mustache and blushing redder than the carnations
in his button-hole. He wants to take me in to dinner, poor fellow, and
he hasn't the courage to do it."

"With your kind permission, Lady Louise, I will save him the trouble,"
answered Sir Everard Kingsland. "Grosvenor is not singular in his
wish, but I never gave him credit for so much good taste before."

"Mr. Grosvenor is more at home in the hunting-field than the
drawing-room, I fancy. Apropos, Sir Everard, I ride to the meet
to-morrow. Of course you will be present on your 'bonny bay' to
display your prowess?"

"Of course--a fox-hunt is to me a foretaste of celestial bliss. With a
first-rate horse, a crack pack of hounds, a 'good scent,' and a fine
morning, a man is tempted to wish life could last forever. And you are
only going to ride to the meet, then, Lady Louise?"

"Yes; I never followed the hounds, I don't know the country and I can't
ride to points. Besides, I am not really Amazonian enough to fancy a
scamper across the country, flying fences and risking my precious neck."

"I must own that, to me, a lady never looks less attractive than in a
hunting-field, among yelping hounds, and shouts, and cheers, and cords
and tops, and scarlet coats."

"That comes of being a poet and an artist; and Sir Everard Kingsland is
accused of being both. You want to fancy us all angels, and you can
not reconcile an angelic being with a side-saddle and a hard gallop.
Now, I don't own to being anything in the Di Vernon line myself, and I
don't wish to be; but I do think a pretty girl never looks half so
pretty as when well mounted. You should have seen Harrie Hunsden, as I
saw her the other day, and you would surely recant your heresy about
ladies and horse-flesh."

"Is Harrie Hunsden a lady?"

"Certainly. Don't you know her? She is Captain Hunsden's only
daughter--Hunsden, of Hunsden Hall, one of your oldest Devon families.
You'll find them duly chronicled in Burke and Debrett. Mis