m him
than is his wont, and treats curb and snaffle with a like disregard
and callousness of mouth. Now he stops altogether, and catching a side
view of his head his eye appears to me more prominent than usual, and
the whole animal seems changed, till I can hardly fancy it is my own
horse. I get a little frightened now, and look round for assistance. I
am quite alone. Hounds, horsemen, all have disappeared; the wide,
dreary, solitary Downs stretch around me, and I begin to have
misgivings as to how I am to get back to Dangerfield Hall. Cousin John
has explained it all to me since.

"Nothing could be simpler, Kate," said he this evening when I handed
him his tea; "you _stopped your horse_. If ladies _will_ go in front
with a loose rein for five-and-forty minutes, 'riding jealous' of such
a first-rate performer as Frank Lovell, it is not an unlikely thing to
happen. If you could have lasted ten minutes longer, you would have
seen them kill their fox. Frank was the only one there, but he assures
me he could not have gone another hundred yards. Never mind, Kate,
better luck next time!"

Well, to return to my day. After a while White Stockings began to
recover himself. I'm sure I didn't know what to do with him. I got
off, and loosened his girths as well as I could, and turned his head
to the wind, and wiped his poor nose with my pocket-handkerchief. I
hadn't any eau-de-Cologne, and if I had it might not have done him
much good. At last he got better, and I got on again (all my life I've
been used to mounting and dismounting without assistance). Thinking
downhill must be the way home, downhill I turned him, and proceeded
slowly on, now running over in my own mind the glorious hour I had
just spent, now wondering whether I should be lost and have to sleep
amongst the Downs; and anon coming back to the old subject, and
resolving that hunting was the only thing to live for, and that for
the future I would devote my whole time and energies to that pursuit.
At last I got into a steep chalky lane, and at a turn a little farther
on espied to my great relief a red-coated back jogging leisurely home.
White Stockings pricked his ears and mended his pace, so I soon
overtook the returning sportsman, who proved to be no other than
Squire Haycock, thrown out like the rest of the Heavy-top gentlemen,
and only too happy to take care of me, and show me the shortest way
(eleven miles as the crow flies) back to Dangerfield Hall.

We jogged