There was not much to boast of as to the hunting, but it was a very pleasant day for the ladies. The men rode up and down the grass roads through the chase, sometimes in the greatest possible hurry as though they never could go quick enough; and then the coachmen would drive very fast also though they did not know why, for a fast pace of movement is another of those contagious diseases. And then again the sportsmen would move at an undertaker’s pace, when the fox had traversed and the hounds would be at a loss to know which was the hunt and which was the heel; and then the carriage also would go slowly, and the ladies would stand up and talk. And then the time for lunch came; and altogether the day went by pleasantly enough. “And so that’s hunting, is it?” said Miss Dunstable. “Yes, that’s hunting,” said Mr. Sowerby. “I did not see any gentleman do anything that I could not do myself, except there was one young man slipped off into the mud; and I shouldn’t like that.” “But there was no breaking of bones, was there, my dear?” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “And nobody caught any foxes,” said Miss Dunstable. “The fact is, Mrs. Smith, that I don’t think much more of their sport than I do of their business. I shall take to hunting a pack of hounds myself after this.” “Do, my dear, and I’ll be your whipper-in. I wonder whether Mrs. Proudie would join us.” “I shall be writing to the duke to-night,” said Mr. Fothergill to Mark, as they were all riding up to the stable-yard together. “You will let me tell his grace that you will accept his invitation--will you not?” “Upon my word, the duke is very kind,” said Mark. “He is very anxious to know you, I can assure you,” said Fothergill. What could a young flattered fool of a parson do, but say that he would go? Mark did say that he would go; and, in the course of the evening his friend Mr. Sowerby congratulated him, and the bishop joked with him and said that he knew that he would not give up good company so soon; and Miss Dunstable said she would make him her chaplain as soon as parliament would allow quack doctors to have such articles--an allusion which Mark did not understand, till he learned that Miss Dunstable was herself the proprietress of the celebrated Oil of Lebanon, invented by her late respected father, and patented by him with such wonderful results in the way of accumulated fortune; and Mrs. Proudie made him quite one of their party, talking to him about all manner of church subjects; and then at last, even Miss Proudie smiled on him, when she learned that he had been thought worthy of a bed at a duke’s castle. And all the world seemed to be open to him.