can fire a horse to his best, by some mystery, compound of sympathy and stimulation, that has no outward manifestation.  Joker’s great shoulders worked under her as he lengthened and quickened his beautiful, rhythmic stride.  The wind of the pace whistled in her ears and snatched at her hair.  She crammed her hat over her forehead, laughing with the joy of battle.  She was level with Larry now.  Now she was passing him, and the little grey strove in vain to hold her place.  Gallant as she was, what could she do against a raking, trained galloper, well over sixteen hands, and nearly thoroughbred?

The smooth mile of shining grass was annihilated, wiped out in a few whirling minutes.  Joker had but just fairly settled down to go when the end of the race was at hand.  Had he been a shade less of a gentleman than he was, Christian, and the snaffle in which she was riding him, would hardly have stopped him, as did their joint efforts, on the gravel in front of the goal that Larry had given her.

Hunts come, and hunts go, and are forgotten.  Horses, the best and dearest of them, fade, in some degree, from remembrance; where are the snows of yester year, and where the great gallops that we rode when we were young?  But here and there something defies the mists of memory, and remains, bright and imperishable as a diamond.  I believe that for Christian that mile of sun and wind and speed and flight, with her lover thundering at her heels, will remain ever vivid, one of the moments that are of the incalculable bounty of Chance; moments that earth can never equal, nor Heaven better.

The hounds and staff were waiting at the farther end of the long front of Castle Ire, when Larry and Christian made their somewhat sensational entrance upon the scene.

“Joker wins, by a length and a half,” said Bill Kirby, judicially, “and a very pretty race.  I never saw a prettier, on any sands, on any jackasses, on any Bank Holiday!  I suppose this is how people always fetch up at meets in France?  It’s not come in in this benighted country yet.”

“His fault!” said Christian, breathless and glowing.  “He dar’d me!  Where are you going to draw?”

“The ash-pit and the fowl-houses,” replied Bill, picking up his reins.  “Then the backstairs, and the kitchenmaid’s bedroom.  Judith and Mrs. Brady say he’s taking all the fowl, and they’re going to lay poison—­I don’t mean the fowl—­”

“Isn’t he bright this morning?” said Judith, looking down upon the party from an upper window, effectively arrayed in one of those lacy and lazy garments that invite, while they repudiate, society.  “No, I’m not coming out.  Too early for me.  Come in and eat something—­breakfast or lunch, anything—­when you’ve done enough.”

The hounds moved on and were soon busy in the screens of glossy laurel round the house.  Other riders arrived.  A fox was found, if not in the kitchenmaid’s bedroom in some spot of almost equal intimacy, and the Hunt surged in and through yards, and haggards, outhouses, and gardens, the hounds over-running all the complicated surroundings of an Irish country-house, while every grade of domestic, forsaking his or her lawful occupation, joined in the chase.