“I hope so, for I mean to hunt him to the end of the season,” answered Harrington, ignoring that awful necessity of selling before the end of the month. Hope glowed faintly in his breast as he saw the Major’s keen eye going over his mount, as if studying the condition of every limb and every muscle. “Wears well,” he said, after this deliberate survey, “but I’m afraid you’ll find him like the wonderful one-horse shay. He’ll go to pieces all at once. Did Baldwin tell you his age?” “He said something about rising eight—but I didn’t inquire very particularly, as I know the horse is a good one.” “And it was a good one of Baldwin to talk about rising eight. He would have been within the mark if he had said rising eighteen. I’ve bought a horse of Sir Henry myself, and,”—after a brief pause—“I’ve sold him one.” “And I dare say that made you even,” said Harrington, with acidity. He would have liked to call the Major out for his insolence, and almost regretted that he was a Briton, and not a Frenchman and a professed duellist. “Faith, I don’t think he had altogether the best of me—for when he rode that hunter of mine he was like the little old woman in the nursery rhyme, of whom it was said that she should have music wherever she went. He had music, and to spare.” And so with jovial laughter they rode up to the open space in front of the “Red Cow,” where the hounds were grouped about a duck-pond, while the master chatted with his friends. It was an hour later before Juliet appeared, cropping up suddenly on a windy common, with three other girls and two men, while the hounds were drawing the furze. “You see I could make a pretty good guess where to find you,” she said to Harrington. “How well the black looks! You have been saving him up, I suppose?” “No, I’ve hunted as often as I could. I had no other distraction during your absence.” “How sweet of you to say that—with all the gaieties of Dorchester to allure you! Hark! they’ve found, and we shall be off in a minute. Yes, there he goes!”—pointing with her whip to the spot where the fox had flashed across the short level sward, vanishing next moment in the withered heather. “Now you’ll see what this horse can do, and you can tell me what you think of him when we meet at dinner.” There was the usual minute or so of flutter and expectation, and then the business-like calm—an almost awful calm—every man settling down to his work, intent upon himself, steering carefully for a good place. Harrington was a nervous rider, and if fortune helped him to get a good place he rarely kept it. To-day he was more than usually nervous, fancying that Juliet’s eye was upon him, which it wasn’t, and, indeed, could not have been, unless it had been situated in the back of her head, since she was already ever so far in front.