Lady Cecilia, who was riding with her husband in some fields adjoining the park, caught a glimpse of the phaeton as it went along the avenue, and, while the general was giving some orders to the wood-ranger about a new plantation, she, telling him that she would be back in two minutes, cantered off to overtake her mother, and, making a short cut across the fields, she leaped a wide ha-ha which came in her way. She was an excellent horse-woman, and Fairy carried her lightly over; and when she heard the general’s voice in dismay and indignation at what she had done, she turned and laughed, and cantered on till she overtook the phaeton. The breeze had blown her hair most becomingly, and raised her colour, and her eyes were joyously bright, and her light figure, always well on horseback, now looked so graceful as she bent to speak to her mother, that her husband could not find it in his heart to scold her, and he who came to chide remained to admire. Her mother, looking up at her, could not help exclaiming, “Well! certainly, you are an excessively pretty creature!” “Bearers of good news always look well, I believe,” said she, smiling; “so there is now some goodness in my face.” “That there certainly is,” said her mother, fondly. “But you certainly don’t know what it is--you cannot know till I tell you, my dearest Helen--my dear mother, I mean. Granville Beauclerc will be here to-day--I am sure of it. So pray do not go far from home--do not go out of the grounds: this was what I was in such a hurry to say to you.” “But how do you know, Cecilia?” “Just because I can read,” replied she, “because I can read a newspaper through, which none of you newspaper-readers by profession could do this morning. After you all of you laid them down I took them up, and found in that evening paper which your stupid aide-de-camp had been poring and boring over, a fresh list of arrivals, and Mr. Granville Beauclerc among them at full length. Now he would not stay a moment longer in town than was absolutely necessary, you know, or else he ought to be excommunicated. But it is not in his nature to delay; he will be here directly--I should not be surprised--” “You are right, Cecilia,” interrupted the general. “I see a caleche on that road.--It is he.”