It was really delightful amid all this to look at the two English girls, who sat their horses so easily and so gracefully. Bending slightly with each curvet, they only yielded to the impulse of the animal as much as served to keep their own balance; the light but steady finger on the bridle, the air of quiet composure, uniting elegance with command. What a contrast to the distorted gesture, the desperate earnestness, and the fearful tenacity of their much-whiskered companions! And yet it was to please and fascinate these same pinchbeck sportsmen that these girls were then there. If they rode over everything that day--fence or rail, brook or bank--it was because the _chasse_ to them was less _au cerf_ than _au mari_. Such was the case. The old colonel had left England because he preferred the Channel to the fleet; the glorious liberty which Englishmen are so proud of would have been violated in his person had he remained. His failing, like many others, was that he had lived ‘not wisely, but too well’; and, in short, however cold the climate, London would have proved too hot for him had he stayed another day in it. What a deluge of such people float over the Continent, living well and what is called ‘most respectably’; dining at embassies and dancing at courts; holding their heads very high, too--most scrupulous about acquaintances, and exclusive in all their intimacies! They usually prefer foreign society to that of their countrymen, for obvious reasons. Few Frenchmen read the _Gazette_. I never heard of a German who knew anything about the list of outlaws. Of course they have no more to say to English preserves, and so they take out a license to shoot over the foreign manors; and though a marquis or a count are but ‘small deer,’ it’s the only game left, and they make the best of it. At last the host appeared, attired in a scarlet frock, and wearing a badge at his button-hole something about the shape and colour of a new penny-piece. He was followed by above a dozen others, similarly habited, minus the badge; and then came about twenty more, dressed in green frocks, with red collars and cuffs--a species of smaller deities, who I learned were called ‘Aspirants,’ though to what they aspired, where it was, or when they hoped for it, nobody could inform me. Then there were _piqueurs_ and grooms and whippers-in without number, all noisy and all boisterous--about twenty couple of fox-hounds giving tongue, and a due proportion of the scarlet folk blowing away at that melodious pipe, the _cor de chasse_. With this goodly company I moved forward, ‘alone, but in a crowd’; for, unhappily, my want of tact as a sporting character the previous evening had damaged me seriously with the hunting youths, and Mademoiselle Laura showed no desire to accept the companionship her worthy father had selected for her. ‘No matter,’ thought I, ‘there’s a great deal to see here, and I can do without chatting in so stirring a scene as this.’