at would their
poor hunters do if a frost came?

Finally, having enunciated all these small remarks, Miss Kitty turned a
radiant face on their visitor, who was stretched luxuriously in a big
armchair by the fire, and bade him tell her the very latest news, for
she expected all sorts of gossip and, if possible, some scandals from
him.

Mr. Lawrence laughed delightedly; he was really proud of his reputation
as a scandal-monger. 'Well,' he said, 'I believe I can supply you with
the very latest thing of that description,' and then he told her the
story.

Kitty had led a rough-and-tumble sort of life, and every one knew
perfectly well that hers had been a liberal education at the hands of
her father. Yet even Mr. Lawrence would not have blurted out his tale
to Jane Erskine, for instance, as he had just done to Kitty. But bless
you! every one knew that old Lord Sherard told his daughter his best
scenes, and that she stayed with him in Continental hotels which some
very particular mothers would not have allowed their daughters to
enter. Mr. Lawrence wound up by saying, in a very charitable way, that
he didn't blame the poor little woman, for she had a perfect beast of a
husband.

Kitty was still kneeling on the white sheepskin rug and holding out her
cold hands to the blaze when Mr. Lawrence had finished; and Miss
Abingdon, who had tried once or twice without success to catch Mr.
Lawrence's eye and to check his loquacity, shook her head as she
realized that Kitty did not seem the least bit shocked.

When Mr. Lawrence had left, Kitty changed her shooting dress for a
habit and announced to Miss Abingdon, who suggested that she should
rest for the remainder of the afternoon, that she was going to exercise
one of Jane's horses. She mounted the hunter and went off alone,
blowing kisses to Miss Abingdon from the tips of her riding gloves, and
so out of the white gates down the road to the left, and then into the
open country. She set her horse at a fence and flew over it. Her
small white teeth were pressed together, and her eyes, under level
black eye-brows, had a fierce look in them. She pulled her hat more
firmly down upon her brows and steered her hunter across country, as
though following the quickest burst of hounds of the season. Kitty was
a tireless rider, and Jane's hunter did not want exercise for some
little time after this. The country round Bowshott is known as 'stiff'
for hunting people, but Kitty had m