She was a girl of violent blood, and, excited by the air of the hunting-field, she followed Fred’s lead fearlessly; to feel the life of the horse throbbing underneath her passioned and fevered her flesh until her mental exaltation reached the rushing of delirium.  Then his evening manners fascinated her, and, as he leaned back smoking in the dining-room arm-chair, his patent-leather shoes propped up against the mantelpiece, he showed her glimpses of a wider world than she knew of—­and the girl’s eyes softened as she listened to his accounts of the great life he had led, the county-houses he had visited, and the legendary runs he had held his own in.  She sympathized with him when he explained how hardly fate had dealt with him in not giving him L5,000 a year, to be spent in London and Northamptonshire.

He cursed Ireland as the most hideous hole under the sun; he frightened Mrs. Gould by reiterated assurances that the Land League would leave them all beggars; and, having established this point, he proceeded to develop his plan for buying young horses, training them, and disposing of them in the English market.  Eventually he dismissed his audience by taking up the newspaper and falling asleep with the stump of a burned-out cigarette between his lips.  After breakfast he was seen slouching through the laurels on his way to the stables.  From the kitchen and the larder—­where the girls were immersed in calculations anent the number of hams, tongues, and sirloins of beef that would be required—­he could be seen passing; and as May stood on no ceremony with Alice, whistling to her dogs, and sticking both hands into the pockets of her blue dress, she rushed after him, the mud of the yard oozing through the loose, broken boots which she insisted on wearing.  Behind the stables there was a small field that had lately been converted into an exercise-ground, and there the two would stand for hours, watching a couple of goat-like colts, mounted by country lads—­still in corduroy and hobnails—­walking round and round.

Mrs. Gould was clearly troubled by this very plain conduct.  Once or twice she allowed a word of regret to escape her, and Alice could see that she lived in awe of her daughter.  And May, there was no doubt, was a little lawless when Fred was about her skirts; but when he was gone she returned to her old, glad, affectionate ways and to her work.

The girls delighted in each other’s society, and the arrangements for their ball were henceforth a continual occupation.  The number of letters that had to be written was endless.  Sitting at either end of the table in the drawing-room, their pens scratched and their tongues rattled together; and, penetrated with the intimacy of home, all kinds of stories were told, and the whole country was passed in review.

‘And do you know,’ said May, raising her eyes from the letter she was writing, ’when this affair was first started mamma was afraid to go in for it; she said we’d find it hard to hunt up fifty spinsters in Galway.’