example of steadiness--but with watchful eyes and pricked ears.

Squire Brand came up to them.

"I'd advise you to get up near the far end of the covert," he said.
"It's almost a certainty that he'll break away there and make a
bee-line across to Harley Wood. I hope he will, for there's less
plough there than in the other direction." He hurried off, and Norah
permitted Brunette to caper after him. A young officer on a big bay
followed their example.

"Come along," he said to a companion. "It's a safe thing to follow
old Brand's lead if you want to get away well."

Where the covert ended the hill sloped gently to undulating fields,
divided by fairly stiff hedges with deep ditches, and occasionally by
post-and-rail fences, more like the jumps that Norah knew in
Australia. The going was good and sound, and there was no wire--that
terror of the hunter. Norah had always hated wire, either plain or
barbed. She held that it found its true level in being used against
Germans.

Somewhere in a tangle of bracken an old hound spoke sharply. A little
thrill ran through her. She saw her father put his pipe in his pocket
and pull his hat more firmly down on his forehead, while she held back
Brunette, who was dancing wildly. Then came another note, and
another, and a long-drawn burst of music from the hounds; and suddenly
Norah saw a stealthy russet form, with brush sweeping the ground, that
stole from the covert and slid down the slope, and after him, a
leaping wave of brown and white and black as hounds came bounding from
the wood and flung themselves upon the scent, with Mrs. Ainslie close
behind. Some one shouted "Gone awa-a-y!" in a voice that went ringing
in echoes round the hillside.

Brunette bucked airily over the low fence near the covert, and
Killaloe took it almost in his stride. Then they were racing side by
side down the long slope, with the green turf like wet velvet
underfoot; and the next hedge seemed rushing to meet them. Over,
landing lightly in the next field; before them only the "Master" and
whip, and the racing hounds, with burning eyes for the little red
speck ahead, trailing his brush.

"By Jove, Norah!" said David Linton, "we're in for a run!"

Norah nodded. Speech was beyond her; only all her being was singing
with the utter joy of the ride. Beneath her Brunette was spurning the
turf with dainty hooves; stretching out in her gallop, yet gathering
herself cleverly at her fences, with