In the meantime, for we have been a little anticipating in our last
remarks, the family at Hurstley were much pleased with the country they
now inhabited. They made excursions of discovery into the interior of
their world, Mrs. Ferrars and Myra in the pony-chair, her husband
and Endymion walking by their side, and Endymion sometimes taking his
sister's seat against his wish, but in deference to her irresistible
will. Even Myra could hardly be insensible to the sylvan wildness of the
old chase, and the romantic villages in the wooded clefts of the downs.
As for Endymion he was delighted, and it seemed to him, perhaps he
unconsciously felt it, that this larger and more frequent experience of
nature was a compensation for much which they had lost.

After a time, when they had become a little acquainted with simple
neighbourhood, and the first impression of wildness and novelty had
worn out, the twins were permitted to walk together alone, though within
certain limits. The village and its vicinity was quite free, but they
were not permitted to enter the woods, and not to wander on the chase
out of sight of the mansion. These walks alone with Endymion were the
greatest pleasure of his sister. She delighted to make him tell her of
his life at Eton, and if she ever sighed it was when she lamented that
his residence there had been so short. Then they found an inexhaustible
fund of interest and sympathy in the past. They wondered if they ever
should have ponies again. "I think not," said Myra, "and yet how merry
to scamper together over this chase!"

"But they would not let us go," said Endymion, "without a groom."

"A groom!" exclaimed Myra, with an elfish laugh; "I believe, if the
truth were really known, we ought to be making our own beds and washing
our own dinner plates."