I have given you, as yet, no description of his personal appearance? All right; I will ask him for his passport; therein you will read: Blue eyes, fair hair, reddish mustache, face clean shaven, regular features--and you will be just as wise as you were before. Clumsy? No, that he is decidedly not. His ears are the best point about him, small, well shaped, and close set. And disposition? That you needs must know, too. Well, good, a trifle quiet, with a touch of the grand-fatherly in it. But I will modernize him, poor fellow. I told him the other day that the men about us were in the habit of getting their hosiery and a couple of suits, at least, from England every year: and that an ill-dressed man was an anomaly in society. “Why?” he asked. “Please explain.” His simplicity annoyed me, and I answered, “The thing is clear enough, and needs no explanation.” “Good Heavens!” said he, “if it be our clothes alone which fit us for society, how highly we should esteem those who make them. A man ought never to be seen but arm in arm with his tailor.” Have you ever heard anything so idiotic? Tell me honestly. Yesterday we were out with the harriers. I, well in front on my good Harras, not caring so much for the hunt, but enjoying the exhilaration of meeting the keen wind, when, at a bit of a ditch my fool of a horse, hang it! gathers himself for a springs as if he were going at a hurdle, and I--Nesti--I flew over his head. There lay I, and Harras standing snorting angrily, and looking as if he had never set eyes on me before. He seemed not to know me, would not believe I was his mistress, was ready to tear off away from me, and let me limp home on foot. Nesti, my heart beat wildly. Rising very slowly, so as not to frighten him I kept saying, “Harasserl, quiet, my beauty, it was only a joke!” And while he snorted at me I caught hold of his bridle, and, looking round, saw no one near. Oh, what joy, thought I; led Harras to the bank of the ditch, and was just about to spring into the saddle, when he grows wild again, and gets quite unmanageable--and why? He hears a horse galloping, and true enough, that stupid count must needs come dashing up. “What has happened, countess?” he asks. “Nothing,” I answer, and turn away that he may not see my hot cheeks. “I was only doing something to my saddle.” “You are all right?” “All right.”