illing her first with
admiration, then with a little doubt whether it would not be better to
see the people more distinctly on the other side. Dinner had gone on a
little way, and her companion had begun to put the usual questions to
her about where she had been, and where she was going, questions to
which Chatty, who had been nowhere, and had not as yet one other
invitation (which feels a little humiliating when you hear of all the
great things that are going on), could make but little reply, when in
one of the pauses of the conversation, she was suddenly aware of a
laugh, which made her start slightly, and opened up an entirely new
interest in this as yet not very exciting company. It was like the
opening of a window to Chatty, it seemed to let in pure air, new light.
And yet it was only a laugh, no more. She looked about her with a little
eagerness: and then it was that she began to find the flowers and the
ferns, which had filled her with enthusiasm a moment before, to be
rather in the way.

"I suppose you go to the Row every morning," said her entertainer.
"Don't you find that always the first thought when one comes to town?
You ride, of course. Oh, why not in the Row? there is nothing alarming
about it. A little practice, that is all that is wanted; to know how to
keep your horse in hand. But you hunt? then you are all right----"

"Oh no, we never hunted." It struck Chatty with a little surprise to be
talked to as if she had a stud at her command. Should she tell him that
this was a mistake; that there were only two horses beside Theo's, and
that Minnie and she had once had a pony between them--which was very
different from hunting, or having nerve to ride in the Row? Chatty found
afterwards that horses and carriages, and unbounded opportunities for
amusing yourself, and a familiar acquaintance with the entire peerage,
were always taken for granted in conversation whenever you dined out;
but at first she was unacquainted with this peculiarity and did not feel
quite easy in her mind about allowing it to be supposed that she was so
much greater a person. Her little hesitations, however, as to how she
should reply and the pauses she made when she heard that laugh arrested
the current of her companion's talk, and made it necessary for her, to
her own alarm, to originate a small observation which, as often happens
to a shy speaker, occurred just at the time when there was a momentary
lull in the general talk. What she