"Go along, Kate!" he shouts encouragingly, and again I speed after Frank Lovell, who is by this time nearly a quarter of a mile ahead of me, and at least that distance behind the hounds. White Stockings is going very pleasantly, but the ground is now entirely on the rise, and he indulges occasionally in a trot without any hint on my part; the fences fortunately get weaker and weaker; the fields are covered with stones, and are light, good galloping enough, but the rise gets steeper every yard; round hills are closing in about us; we are now on the Downs, and the pack is still fleeting ahead, like a body of hounds in a dream, every moment increasing their distance from us, and making them more and more indistinct. Frank Lovell disappears over the brow of that hill, and I urge White Stockings to overtake my only companion. He don't seem to go much faster for all that. I strike him once or twice with my light riding-whip; I shake my reins, and he comes back into a trot; I rise in my stirrup and rouse his energies in every way I can think of. I am afraid he must be ill, the trot degenerates to a jog, a walk; he carries his head further out from him than is his wont, and treats curb and snaffle with a like disregard and callousness of mouth. Now he stops altogether, and catching a side view of his head his eye appears to me more prominent than usual, and the whole animal seems changed, till I can hardly fancy it is my own horse. I get a little frightened now, and look round for assistance. I am quite alone. Hounds, horsemen, all have disappeared; the wide, dreary, solitary Downs stretch around me, and I begin to have misgivings as to how I am to get back to Dangerfield Hall. Cousin John has explained it all to me since. "Nothing could be simpler, Kate," said he this evening when I handed him his tea; "you _stopped your horse_. If ladies _will_ go in front with a loose rein for five-and-forty minutes, 'riding jealous' of such a first-rate performer as Frank Lovell, it is not an unlikely thing to happen. If you could have lasted ten minutes longer, you would have seen them kill their fox. Frank was the only one there, but he assures me he could not have gone another hundred yards. Never mind, Kate, better luck next time!"