Thus the autumn went by and winter approached, a season chiefly welcomed, so it seemed to the two _émigrées_, because it was that of the pursuit of the fox. The neighbouring squires who had shot Sir William’s coverts now pranced jovially round the house on their steeds, or consumed enormous quantities of cold beef and ale within its precincts, for Sir William was master of the local pack. Amelia’s betrothed, Mr Philip Harbenden, was his deputy, and it was from the conversation of these two gentlemen that the French ladies were able to rate at its true importance the national sport of their adoptive country. A rider who often discovered that his way home after a run led him past the Court, a gentleman who found that the well-being of the kennels called for frequent visits of inspection—Mr Harry Trenchard—had carried on since the summer a very agreeable friendship with Mademoiselle d’Aucourt. It is true that at first she had not seemed to understand what he wanted, but, by the exercise of unsuspected tact and perseverance, he had gained her over to a considerable measure of it. Amelia was amused at his attentions, and indeed the two girls were apt to laugh a little over him. But in an odd way Lucienne was grateful to him for his frequent visits. He was another person to whom she could, if she wished, talk of Louis—though any possibility of his giving her the smallest detail of fresh information on that topic had long ago been exhausted. She found him more amusing than Mr Harbenden (who was, besides, occupied with Amelia), more sensible than Sir Francis Stansfield (a youth who, obviously smitten with her charms, was precluded from an intelligible expression of his sentiments by his lack of French and by a fashionable jargon of his own which Lucienne could not understand), less paternal than that distinguished traveller, agriculturist, and near neighbour, Mr Arthur Young of Bradfield Hall, who paid her rather charming compliments in her own tongue. George Ashley she placed in a category apart. She did not understand him, while aware, every time that she encountered his quiet, observant gaze, that he probably understood her only too well.