"I told you it would not be long before we met, Miss Coventry," said a well-known voice beside me; and turning round, I shook hands with Captain Lovell; and I am ashamed to confess, shook all over into the bargain. I am always a little nervous the first day of the season. How well he looked in his red coat and neat appointments, with his graceful seat upon a horse, and so high-bred, amongst all the country squires and jolly yeomen that surrounded us! He had more colour too than when in London, and altogether I thought I had never seen him looking so handsome. The chestnut with the wicked eye, showing off his fine shape, now divested of clothing, curvetted and bent to his rider's hand as if he thoroughly enjoyed that light restraining touch: the pair looked what the gentlemen call "all over like going," and I am sure one of them thought so too. "I saw your horses on their way to Muddlebury yesterday," I at length found courage to say. "Are you going to hunt all the season with the Heavy-top?" "How long do you stay at Dangerfield?" was the counter question from Frank; "you see I know the name of the place already; I believe I could find my way now about the Park; very picturesque it is too by night, Miss Coventry. Do you like music by moonlight?" "Not if it's played out of tune," I answered with a laugh and a blush; but just then Squire Haycock, whom I scarcely knew in his hunting costume, rode up to us, and begged as a personal favour to himself that we would accompany him to a particular point, from which he could ensure us a good start if the fox went away--his face becoming scarlet as he expressed a hope "Miss Coventry would not allow her fondness for the chase to lead her into unnecessary danger;" whilst Frank looked at him with a half-amused, half-puzzled expression that seemed to say, "What a queer creature you are; and what the deuce can that matter to you?" I wonder why people always want to oblige you when you don't want to be obliged; "too civil by half" is much more in the way than "not half civil enough." So we rode on with Squire Haycock, and took up a position at the end of the wood that commanded a view of the whole proceedings, and, as Frank whispered to me, was "the likeliest place in the world if we wanted to head the fox."