It was no longer a stern chase, where the direct speed only of the rival and hostile animals was brought into play; for, as the stag turned to the left about, the black and brindled alans, which had been started at his head, were thrown by the movement some thirty yards wide on his right quarter; while the white dogs, who had pursued him so savagely from the beginning, were brought to a position nearly equidistant on his left flank. Henceforth it was a course of fleet bounds, short turns, and windings of wonderful agility; and at this instant a new spectator, or spectatress rather, was added to the scene. This was a young girl of some sixteen or seventeen years, at the utmost, beautifully formed, and full of easy grace and symmetry, who came careering down the road, from the direction of the castle, as fast as the flying bounds of a beautiful red roan Arab--with mane and tail of silver, scarcely larger or less fleet than the deer in the plain below--could carry her. Her face and features were not less beautiful than her form; the latter would have been perfectly Grecian and classical but for the slightest possible upward turn in the delicate thin nose, which imparted an arch, half-saucy meaning to her rich, laughing face. Her eyes were clear, bright blue, with long, dark lashes, a pure complexion, ripe, crimson lips, and a flood of dark auburn tresses, which had escaped from the confinement of her purple velvet bonnet, and flowed on the light breeze in a flood of glittering ringlets, completed her attractions. Her garb was the rich attire peculiar to her age, rank, and the period of which we write--the most picturesque, perhaps, and appropriate to set off the perfections of a female figure of rare symmetry, that ever has been invented. A closely-fitting jacket, following every curve and sinuous line of her beauteous shape, of rich green velvet, furred deeply at the cape and cuffs with white swansdown, and bordered at the hips by a broad band of the same pure garniture; loose-flowing skirts, of heavy sendal of the same hue, a crimson velvet shoulder-belt supporting a richly-embroidered hawking-pouch, a floating plume of white ostrich feathers, and a crimson-hooded merlin on her wrist, with golden bells and jesses, completed her person's adornment; and combined, with the superb housings and velvet headstall of her exquisite palfrey, to form a charming picture. So rapidly did she ride, that a single page--a boy of ten or twelve years, who followed her--spurring with all his might, could scarcely keep her in sight; and, as she careered down toward the bridge, which she had almost reached, was lost to view in the valley immediately behind the ridge, the southern slope of which she was descending.