Miss Sally Dopping came of a very horsey family, and had ruled her father’s sporting establishment for many years; but he had been cut off by a coaching accident, and her only brother had broken his neck in a steeplechase. The Doppings generally met their deaths by flood or field; a natural death in a four-poster would be an unnatural death to them. Miss Sally herself had followed the hounds with reckless persistence, in a black skirt and scarlet jacket; delighting the male sex, and horrifying their wives and daughters, for a fox-hunting lady was not a common or popular spectacle fifty years ago; but Miss Sally did not care a button for the local Mrs. Grundy. She swallowed a bowl of strong broth at eight o’clock in the morning, and set off on her well-bred, rat-tailed hunter, to the nearest meet, and enjoyed herself vastly. She paid ceremonious visits to her neighbours, in her mother’s old green chariot, and was quite as stiff and snubby to them as they were to her. Indeed, to tell the truth, they were all afraid to say much to her _face_--and she feared no one--for Sally had the reputation of having a high temper, and, it was whispered, had once boxed another lady’s ears. She was an old woman now, who had out-lived her generation and her relations, and was never known to lift her hand to mortal, merely contenting herself with speaking her mind _quite_ plainly, and going her own way. There were no traces of “Galloping Sal” in the wealthy old maid, beyond that she was still an excellent judge of a horse, and had been known, under strong provocation, to rap out a full-bodied oath. Despite her eccentricities (which were not a few--she used a toothpick, rarely wore a cap, and had been seen sitting with her feet on the chimneypiece), she was very popular among the county people, and in great request at their hospitable houses, and took a far higher social position than miserly Mrs. Redmond, or meek Mrs. Malone, even although she lived in the _town_! People said that she and old Brian Redmond had been lovers once, but that they had fallen out over a horse, and that that was the reason of her strong partiality for Betty; but some people will say anything. “Was that Betty’s knock?” she said to herself. No, “Bachelor” never growled at Betty’s step! It was Maria Finny in a damp waterproof, who, noting from over her blind that Miss Dopping’s daily visitor had failed her, ran over to see how she was getting on? “Oh, well, I am just getting on like all of us. _You_ are getting on yourself, Maria.” “Yes,” she admitted, as she removed her cloak, and drew near the fire. “But I am not getting on like Belle Redmond. I should be sorry to be a town’s talk like her.” “The town is always ready to talk. I’ve a mind to buy a flaxen wig and a pair of pink tights, and give it something to gabble about in earnest. Well, and what has Belle been doing now?”