ace, also remembering everything as well
as it were yesterday. "Mr. Twentyman rode over it," she said, "and
Colonel Stubbs rode into it."

"Oh, yes; Stubbs got a ducking; so he did." The Captain had not got a
ducking, but then he had gone round by the road. "It was a good run
that."

"I thought so."

"We haven't been lucky since Sir Harry has had the hounds somehow.
There doesn't seem to be the dash about 'em there used to be when I
was here. I had them before Sir Harry, you know." All this was nearly
in a whisper.

"Were you Master?" asked Ayala, with a tone of surprise which was not
altogether pleasing to the Captain.

"Indeed I was, but the fag of it was too great, and the thanks too
small, so I gave it up. They used to get four days a week out of me."
During the two years that the Captain had had the hounds, there had
been, no doubt, two or three weeks in which he had hunted four days.

Ayala liked hunting, but she did not care much for Captain Glomax,
who, having seen her once or twice on horseback, would talk to her
about nothing else. A little away on the other side of the table Nina
was sitting next to Colonel Stubbs, and she could hear their voices
and almost their words. Nina and Jonathan were first cousins, and,
of course, could be happy together without giving her any cause for
jealousy;--but she almost envied Nina. Yet she had hoped that it
might not fall to her lot to be taken out again that evening by the
Colonel. Hitherto she had not even spoken to him during the day. They
had started to the meet very early, and the gentlemen had almost
finished their breakfast before she had come down. If there had been
any fault it was her fault, but yet she almost felt that there was
something of a disruption between them. It was so evident to her that
he was perfectly happy whilst he was talking to Nina.

After dinner it seemed to be very late before the men came into the
drawing-room, and then they were still engaged upon that weary talk
about hunting, till Lady Rufford, in order to put a stop to it,
offered to sing. "I always do," she said, "if Rufford ventures to
name a fox in the drawing-room after dinner." She did sing, and Ayala
thought that the singing was more weary than the talk about hunting.

While this was going on, the Colonel had got himself shut up in
a corner of the room. Lady Albury had first taken him there, and
afterwards he had been hemmed in when Lady Rufford sat down to the
piano. Aya