Mr. Thornley climbed into his seat and began to gather up his reins: the two restive leaders where put to; the groom who was to accompany the carriage rode off to open gates; and "Steady! steady!" roared the driver, letting out his thong with lightning flashes over the four bare backs, as the impulsive animals after their immemorial custom, mixed themselves all together in promiscuous kickings and buckings prior to coming to a clear understanding with themselves and him. For the few delightful seconds that were occupied in getting off, Rachel was deaf to the cries of her terrified aunt, and blind to everything but the wild movement beneath her; then, as the horses sprang into their collars simultaneously with one great bound, and swept out into the paddock, scattering frightened sheep in all directions, she looked back at her cousin, standing forlornly alone on the doorstep, and waved her hand rapturously. "Good-bye! good-bye!" she called, in her clear happy voice. "I do wish you were coming!" And looking down on Mrs. Hardy before she turned her head, she rallied that stately matron in a gay and reckless manner. "It is all right, Auntie: there is nothing in the world to be afraid of. We made a beautiful start! If the off-leader does get both his traces on one side, Mr. Thornley knows how to make him get between them again. And, oh, _what_ a day it is!" It was, indeed, a day--the kind of day I suppose that has made us, young and old, the holiday-loving, easy-going, fate-defying people that we are, and for ever unfits us, when we have had a few years of them, for any more of those stern experiences, social and atmospherical, in which the youth of many of us seems to us now to have been so harshly disciplined. Sir Henry Thompson has shown us what a close affinity exists between food and virtue; no grown Briton can come out here for ten years and go back without learning something of the value of climate as a raw material of happiness. Though every settled township in the colony has its racecourse and its yearly meetings, this, the nearest to Adelonga, was a two-hours' drive distant, even with four fast horses; and it was nearly the time for the first event to come off when our party reached the ground. The course lay in the ring of a shallow valley, hemmed in with low hills on one slope of which the vehicles of the "county families" of the neighbourhood were withdrawn a little apart from the space occupied by the bulk of the crowd, and such booths, merry-go-rounds, and other rural entertainments as the bulk of the crowd affected.