she hunted once or twice a week with the North
Staffordshire Hounds, and the _Signal_ had stated that she was a
fearless horsewoman. It made this statement one day when she had been
thrown and carried to Sneyd senseless.

The mule, too, seemingly conscious of its responsibilities and its high
destiny, put its best foot foremost and behaved in general like a mule
that knew the name of its great-grandfather. It went through Knype in
admirable style, not swerving at the steam-cars nor exciting itself
about the railway bridge. A photographer who stood at his door
manoeuvring a large camera startled it momentarily, until it remembered
that it had seen a camera before. The Countess, who wondered why on
earth a photographer should be capering round a tripod in a doorway,
turned to inspect the man with her lorgnon.

They were now coursing up the Cauldon Bank towards Hanbridge. They were
already within the boundaries of Hanbridge, and a pedestrian here and
there recognised the Countess. You can hide nothing from the quidnunc of
Hanbridge. Moreover, when a quidnunc in the streets of Hanbridge sees
somebody famous or striking, or notorious, he does not pretend that he
has seen nobody. He points unmistakably to what he has observed, if he
has a companion, and if he has no companion he stands still and stares
with such honest intensity that the entire street stands and stares too.
Occasionally you may see an entire street standing and staring without
any idea of what it is staring at. As the equipage dashingly approached
the busy centre of Hanbridge, the region of fine shops, public-houses,
hotels, halls, and theatres, more and more of the inhabitants knew that
Iris (as they affectionately called her) was driving with a young man in
a tumble-down little victoria behind a mule whose ears flapped like an
elephant's. Denry being far less renowned in Hanbridge than in his
native Bursley, few persons recognised him. After the victoria had gone
by people who had heard the news too late rushed from shops and gazed at
the Countess's back as at a fading dream until the insistent clang of a
car-bell made them jump again to the footpath.

At length Denry and the Countess could see the clock of the Old Town
Hall in Crown Square and it was a minute to three. They were less than a
minute off the Institute.

"There you are!" said Denry, proudly. "Three miles if it's a yard, in
seventeen minutes. For a mule it's none so dusty."

And such was