Yet another "white way" wound down towards the red-roofed farmhouses which lined the banks of the tidal stream glistening in the vale below; and opposite, in front, a gleaming cart-track led up to a strip of fine short grass, differing in quality and even in colour from the turf about it, and marking the place where, according to tradition, Boadicea made her last stand. From thence, by climbing up the low bank on which a hedge was now set, the lover of the downs looked upon one of the grandest views in the South of England--that bounded on one side by the sea, on the other, beyond the unrolled map-like plain, by the long blue barrier of the Surrey hills. Barbara's eyes dilated with pleasure. The fresh autumn wind brought a faint colour to her cheeks. She felt a kind of rapture at the beauty of the sight before her. It was amazing to her that these people could be talking so eagerly to one another, gazing so critically at the huntsman and at the hounds gathered on their haunches, while this marvellous sight lay spread out around and before them. Mrs. Kemp, sitting by the side of Mrs. Boringdon in the pony-carriage, had something of the same feeling. She turned--foolishly, as she somewhat ruefully admitted to herself a moment later--to her companion and contemporary for sympathy--"I never saw Whiteways looking so beautiful as it does to-day!" Mrs. Boringdon looked deliberately away from the sight which lay before her, and gazed thoughtfully at the sham Norman gateway. "Yes," she said, "very pretty indeed! Such a charming background to the men's red coats and to the dogs! Still, I wonder the Duke allows so many poor and dirty people to come streaming through the park. It rather spoils the look of the meet, doesn't it? If I were he, I should close the gates on this one day of the year at any rate." Mrs. Kemp made no answer, but she bethought herself it was surely impossible that Lucy should be happy, in any permanent sense, if made to live in close proximity to Oliver Boringdon's mother. * * * * * Time was going on. The walkers and those who had driven to Whiteways were asking one another uneasily what the Master was waiting for. Miss Vipen, sitting bolt upright by Mrs. Sampson's side, addressing now and again a sharp word of reproof to the two young Sampsons sitting opposite to her, alone divined the cause of the delay. The Master of the South Sussex Hunt, that is, Tom Laxton--she had known him all her life, and even as a boy he had been afraid of her--was, of course, waiting for the Duke, for the Duke and the Halnakeham party! It was too bad to keep the whole field waiting like this, and probably the fault of the Duchess, who was always late at all local functions. Miss Vipen told Mrs. Sampson her opinion of the Duke, of the Duchess, and last but not least of the Master, whose subserviences to the great she thoroughly despised.