of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn
scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel a
presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,' she said
to me; 'am I looking pale?'

"She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly
heard bad news.

"'You're looking nicer than usual,' I said, 'but that's so easy
for you.' Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we
had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in
some gorse-bushes."

"I knew it," said Clovis, "in every fox-hunting story that I've
ever heard there's been a fox and some gorse-bushes."

"Constance and I were well mounted," continued the Baroness
serenely, "and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the
first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the
finish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line,
for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlessly
along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and
my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on
pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened
by the sight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.

"'There they go,' cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, 'In
Heaven's name, what are they hunting?'

"It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as