The rain gave her but little warning. Two or three large drops fell on the sleeves of her habit, then came a squall and a driving shower, such as wets the best broadcloth through and through in less than five minutes. Even the good horse shook his ears in mute protest; and Mrs. Lascelles was fain to sidle him under the hedge, cowering for as much shelter as could be got from the ivy-covered stem of a stunted pollard tree. People have different ideas of pleasure. For some, the most uncomfortable incidents of the chase borrow a charm from the seductive pursuit to which they are unavoidable drawbacks. The infatuated votary accepts falls, lame horses, drenched garments, long rides in the dark, considerable fatigue, and occasional peril of body, with an equanimity marvellous to the uninitiated; and only to be accounted for by the strange perversity of human nature when in headlong pursuit of an idea. Perhaps, after all, the career of life is not inaptly represented by a run with hounds. Difficulties to be surmounted and risks to be encountered add infinitely to the zest of both. In each, there are unremitting exertions to get forward, a constant strain to be nearer and yet nearer some imaginary place of prominence and superiority--an emulation mellowed by good-fellowship with those whom we like and respect for their very efforts to surpass ourselves--a keen excitement damped only by vague wonder that the stimulant should be so powerful, by dim misgivings of which the fatal _cui bono_? is at the root; lastly, a pleasing sense of fatigue and contentment, of resignation rather than regret, when the whirl and tumult of the day are over, and it is time to go home. Mrs. Lascelles, sitting in a wet habit under the hedge, neither drooped with fatigue nor shivered with cold. Her reflections must have been strangely pleasant, for she was almost disappointed when her servant trotted up with the lately shod horse, and touching his hat respectfully, suggested that the weather was getting "worser"--that the horses would catch their deaths, poor things!--that it was still five miles to the station, and that they should proceed--he called it "shog on"--in that direction without delay. The groom was a sober fellow enough, but he had decided, with some justice, that such a wetting as he was likely to encounter justified a glass of brandy on leaving the blacksmith's shop. His loyalty to his mistress and love for the good animals under his charge were, doubtless, not diminished by this cordial; and while with numbed fingers he unrolled the waterproof cape that was buckled before his own saddle, and wrapped it round her dripping shoulders, he could not forbear congratulating Mrs. Lascelles, that "things," as he expressed it, "was no wuss."