plume; a dozen men were round her, striving emulously for a word or a
smile, and she held her own gallantly with them all. She was waiting
patiently till Guy had lighted an obstinate cigar, and was ready to
mount her. He understood putting her up better than any one else, she
said. Perhaps he did; but, though he swung her into the saddle with one
wave of his mighty arm as lightly as Lochinvar could have done, the
arrangement of the skirt and stirrup seemed a problem hardly to be
solved.

If there was any truth in the old Courland superstition that the display
of a lady's ankle to the hunters before they started brought them luck,
we ought to have had the run of the season that day.

He rode by her side, too, as near as the plunges of the chestnut would
allow, till we reached the gorse that we were to draw; once there, the
stronger passion prevailed. Aphroditè hid her face, and the great
goddess Artemis claimed her own. As the first hound whimpered, he drew
off toward a corner, where a big fence would give a chance of shaking
off the crowd, and I do not think he turned his head till the fox went
away.

The last thing I remember there was the anxious look in two beautiful
hazel eyes as they gazed after the Axeine, charging his second fence
with the rush of an express train.

The _fétiche_ did not fail us; we had a wonderful run, of which only
five men saw the end. I confess, the second brook stopped me and many
others. Forrester got over with a fall; but they were preparing to break
up the fox, when he came up first of the second flight.