"Vanished," answers Miss Blessington, in her slow, sweet drawl. "I think Miss Craven must have frightened him away." It is very pleasant, is not it? when you think you have been making a highly favourable impression on a person, to hear that they have fled before you in abject fear. "I had no idea that he was such a timid fawn," answers Essie, nettled. "He is very peculiar," says Constance, her white fingers flying swiftly in and out among the coloured silks of the smoking cap she is embroidering; "and has a most unfortunate shrinking from strangers." "The greatest friends must have been strangers once," objects Essie, feeling rather small. "Quite true, so they must; but he is so very _difficile_, we never can get him to admire any one--can we, aunt?" But "aunt" has fallen sweetly asleep. "With the exception of two or three fortunate blondes--I prefer dark people myself infinitely, don't you?" "Infinitely," replies Esther, with emphasis. It is not true--she does nothing of the kind; but, after all, what is truth in comparison of the discomfiture of an adversary? CHAPTER X. Luncheon comes, but no St. John. After luncheon Sir Thomas, Miss Blessington, and Miss Craven go out riding. Miss Craven's knowledge of horsemanship is confined to her exploits on a small, shaggy, down-hearted Welsh pony, concerning whom it would be difficult to predicate which he was fullest of, years or grass. Miss Blessington has lent her an old habit; it is much too big in the waist and shoulders for her, but a well-made garment always manages to adapt itself more or less to any figure, and she does not look amiss in it. It is a matter of very little consequence to her at the present moment how she looks; she is the arrantest coward in Christendom, and her heart sinks down to the bottom of her boots as she sees three horses that look unnaturally tall and depressingly cheerful issue through the great folding-doors that open into the stable-yard. "Oh, Sir Thomas! it is a chesnut, is it? Don't they say that chesnuts always have very uncertain tempers? Oh! please--I'm rather frightened. I think, if you don't mind, I'd almost as soon----" "Fiddlesticks!" answers Sir Thomas, roughly. "Cannot have my horses saddled and unsaddled every half-hour because you don't know your own mind. God bless my soul, child! Don't look as if you were going to be hanged! Why, you might ride her with a bit of worsted. Here, Simpson, look sharp, and put Miss Craven up." After two abortive attempts, in the first of which she springs short, and glides ignobly to earth again, and in the second takes a bound that goes near to carrying her clean over her steed, after having given Simpson a kick in the face, and torn a hole in her borrowed habit, Miss Craven is at length settled in her seat.