he said, quickly, as she started, and as if
he were struck by a sudden thought.

"Nad Wood."

"If they run the Valley, Miss, mind out for wire!" called Tommy after
her, as she rode out of the yard. "Carmody's fences are strung with
it!"

He ran to the gate to watch the mare as she capered and lunged
sideways along the drive, and thanked God, not for the first time, for
the heavy hands that preserved him from the duty of riding Miss
Christian's horses.

Christian rode past the long ivy-covered lace of the house, that
stared at her with the wall-eyed glare of shuttered windows, and down
the long avenue, that curved submissive to the windings of the
Onwashee, now black and brimming after a week of rain. Young cattle,
that had slept, according to their custom, on the roadway, scrambled
up as she came near, and crashed away through the evergreens, whose
bared lower branches bore witness to their depredations. They were a
sight hateful to Christian, who, in spite of her resignation to the
methods of her groom, cherished a regard for tidiness that she had
often found was more trouble than it was worth.

She let Nancy, the chestnut mare, have her head, a privilege that made
short work of the remaining half-mile of avenue, and soon the stones
and mud of the high road were flying behind her, as the little mare,
snatching at her bridle, and neglecting no opportunity for a shy,
fretted on towards the sunrise, and the covert that lay, purple, on a
long hill, three miles away.

Bill Kirby's foible was not punctuality; when Christian arrived at
the appointed cross-roads in the middle of Nad Wood she found a
patient little group of three or four men, farmers, all of them, she
thought, waiting under the dewy branches of the beeches for the
arrival of the hounds. One of them rode quickly from the group to meet
her. A young man, with a slight figure and square shoulders, who was
riding a long-legged bay horse, that, like its rider, was unknown to
Christian. The light under the beech trees was dim and green, and such
faint illumination as the grey and quiet sky afforded, was coming,
like this rider, to meet Christian. He was close to her before he
spoke, then he caught his cap off his head and waved it, and shouted:
"Hurrah, Christian! Here I am! Home again! Don't pretend you never saw
me before, because I won't stand swagger from you!"

"Larry! Not you? Not really?"

He had her hand by this time, and was shaking it wildly desp