Rowena led the cavalcade on Mr Seton's brown hunter, with her fair locks coiled tightly at the back and her hat pressed down on her forehead. She was not quite so pretty, perhaps, as in ordinary attire, but she looked delightfully trim and business-like, and her young brothers and sisters were proud of her and made favourable comparisons between her and the other lady riders assembled in the square. It was a picturesque sight to see the motley collection of vehicles drawn up by the kerbstones, the riders pacing to and fro, greeting fresh arrivals, who kept trotting in from every direction, the pink coats of the men making welcome touches of colour, and finally the appearance of the hounds themselves, preceded by the huntsmen in their velvet caps and smart white breeches. A long table was laid out in front of the village inn, on which were set refreshments for those who had driven from a distance. The Saxon quartette strolled up and down, wheeling their bicycles as they went, exchanging greetings with acquaintances, and quizzing the peculiarities of strangers, after the merciless fashion of youth. It was just as they reached the farthest corner of the square, and were about to turn back, that Dreda's glance came into contact with a pair of eyes fixed upon her with a coldly antagonistic gaze with which she was painfully familiar. Norah! By all that was inexplicable, Norah West herself, standing calmly in the midst of Newstead Market Square, more than a hundred miles distant from her home, to which she had travelled a short week before! Dreda gazed back in stupefied amazement, and even as she looked a second figure detached itself from the crowd and advanced towards her. "Dreda! I didn't expect to meet you here. I was going to write!" "Susan! What is Norah doing with you? Don't tell me you have asked her to _stay_!" "I didn't--but she _is_ here, all the same. Her brother came home ill from school, and the others had all to be sent off at once in case it was something infectious. She telegraphed to know if she might come to us." "Like her cheek!" "Oh, Dreda, it was horrid for her, too. Just think if you missed your holidays at home! And she had often invited me there." "Oh, of course, she adores you, so you enjoy having her company. Don't let me interfere! It's delightful that you are so well entertained. I congratulate you, I'm sure." Susan's lips quivered. Her face was pinched by the chill wind, which gave increased pathos to her look. "Dreda, I always tell you the truth; it's horrid of me--but I'm _not_ glad! I didn't want her one bit. I thought you and I would be often together, and now that she is here that can't be, I'm afraid. But--poor Norah! None of the girls like her very much; there were so few places she could go to, and just because she isn't--isn't _quite_ what one would wish, there is all the more reason why one should be nice to her. You remember what you said yourself." "What did I say?"