nfusion,
vibrating between "delirium audacious" and "delirium tremens." They
have, however, a certain whip called "Will," who appears to me to do
all the work, and to keep everything right. When old Tippler drinks
himself to death (a casualty which must shortly happen), Will is
pretty sure to succeed him--an event which I fancy will greatly add to
the efficiency of the Heavy-top hounds. To crown all, Frank Lovell
dubs the whole thing "slow;" but I have remarked gentlemen make use of
this epithet to convey their disapproval of that which they cannot
find any positive fault with--just as we ladies call a woman "bad
style" when we have nothing else to say in her disparagement.

"Gone away!" exclaims Squire Haycock, lifting his cap high above his
red head; "yonder he goes! Don't you see him, Miss Coventry, now
whisking under the gate?"

"Forward, forward!" holloas Frank, giving vent to his excitement in
one of those prolonged screams that proclaim how the astonished
sportsman has actually seen the fox with his own eyes. The next
instant he is through the hand-gate at the end of the ride, and rising
in his stirrups, with the wicked chestnut held hard by the head, is
speeding away over the adjoining pasture, alongside of the two or
three couples of leading hounds that have just emerged from the
covert. Ah! we are all forgotten now; women, children, everything is
lost in that first delirious five minutes when the hounds are really
away. Frank was gazing at me a minute ago as if his very life was at
my disposal, and now he is speeding away a field ahead of me, and
don't care whether I break my neck following him or not. But this is
no time for such thoughts as these; the drunken huntsman is sounding
his horn in our rear. Will, the whip, cap in hand, is bringing up the
body of the pack. Squire Haycock holds the gate open for me to pass,
Cousin John goes by me like a flash of lightning; White Stockings with
a loose rein, submits to be kicked along at any pace I like to ask
him. The fence at the end of the field is nothing; I shall go exactly
where Frank did. My blood thrills with ecstasy in my veins: moment of
moments! I have got a capital start, and we are in for a run.

As I sit here in my armchair and dressing-gown, I see the whole
panorama of to-day passing once more before my eyes. I see that dark,
wet, ploughed field, with the white hounds slipping noiselessly over
its furrowed surface. I can almost perceive the fresh, w