Sir Paget in his heart wished 'the whole affair at Jericho,' or in a warmer latitude. To him it was no amusement to set out without time for shaving, to breakfast at an untimeous hour and before he could get up an appetite, and to ride through the morning mist, with icy feet and grasping reins sodden with dew, with the certainty of an attack of rheumatism, when he should have been cosily nestling in bed; and in addition to all these, having a terrible conflict ever and anon with the bay hunter. Sir Harry thought him 'a silly old fogie, who _would_ go cub-hunting to show the world how juvenile he was,' and he was now beginning to console himself with the prospect of a luxurious luncheon at Furzydown and the long, lazy afternoon he would enjoy there before riding leisurely back in the evening to dinner at Hurdell Hall, when Sir Harry would be sure to sing them the old Coplow hunt song-- 'Talk of horses and hounds And the system of kennel, Give me Leicestershire nags And the hounds of old Menyell!' To Eveline the long day after the early breakfast passed very slowly at the Hall. She was in no anxiety for Sir Paget's speedy return, especially after the cloudy manner of his departure, but there were no other lady visitors there just then, and she and Lucretia Hurdell had not a thought, sympathy, or topic in common, and she sighed in utter weariness of spirit as the October day drew to a close, and the brown and purple shadows of evening began to fall. She thought how many such empty days as this were before her, as autumn passed into winter, winter into spring, and the joyless summer--joyless at least to her--would come again. Every morning with its hopelessness, every noon with its listlessness, every evening seeming more blank than the one that preceded it. Would she ever more feel bright and merry as at Dundargue, and regain her sweet and playful habits of caressing affection? And for whom? She stood in one of the many beautiful Tudor bay windows overlooking the terrace and chase, idly and full of her own thoughts, and curiously enough, to her, the rustle of the ivy on the painted panes, of leaves as they fell from the trees, the stillness of the evening hour, and the cawing of the rooks in the old belfry of the house seemed ominous of coming evil. Dusk had come on, the trees were taking strange shapes against the sunset sky, a bat circled noiselessly before her, and the silver crescent of the moon came out above a coppice. A few of these trivial things were, by after events, fixed in her memory, and associated with that calm and almost sultry October evening--the lurid brightness of the sun as he set beyond the black stems of the trees of the chase, the perfume of roses from a majolica jardinière in the bay window, and the angry hum of a great bee entangled among the lace of the curtains.