‘Providence speed him!’ breathed the Countess, with secret fervour.

‘Oh, he hasn’t a chance,’ said Lady Jocelyn.  ’The squire keeps wretched beasts.’

‘Is there not an attraction that will account for his hasty capture?’ said the Countess, looking tenderly at Miss Carrington, who sat a little straighter, and the Countess, hating manifestations of stiff-backedness, could not forbear adding:  ’I am at war with my sympathies, which should be with the poor brute flying from his persecutors.’

She was in a bitter state of trepidation, or she would have thought twice before she touched a nerve of the enamoured lady, as she knew she did in calling her swain a poor brute, and did again by pertinaciously pursuing: 

‘Does he then shun his captivity?’

‘Touching a nerve’ is one of those unforgivable small offences which, in our civilized state, produce the social vendettas and dramas that, with savage nations, spring from the spilling of blood.  Instead of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we demand a nerve for a nerve.  ’Thou hast touched me where I am tender thee, too, will I touch.’

Miss Carrington had been alarmed and hurt at the strange evasion of Mr. George; nor could she see the fun of his mimicry of the fox and his flight away from instead of into her neighbourhood.  She had also, or she now thought it, remarked that when Mr. George had been spoken of casually, the Countess had not looked a natural look.  Perhaps it was her present inflamed fancy.  At any rate the Countess was offensive now.  She was positively vulgar, in consequence, to the mind of Miss Carrington, and Miss Carrington was drawn to think of a certain thing Ferdinand Laxley had said he had heard from the mouth of this lady’s brother when ale was in him.  Alas! how one seed of a piece of folly will lurk and sprout to confound us; though, like the cock in the eastern tale, we peck up zealously all but that one!

The carriage rolled over the turf, attended by Andrew, and Lady Jocelyn, and the hunt was seen; Mr. George some forty paces a-head; Seymour gaining on him, Rose next.

‘Who’s that breasting Rose?’ said Lady Jocelyn, lifting her glass.

‘My brother-in-law, Harrington,’ returned Andrew.

‘He doesn’t ride badly,’ said Lady Jocelyn.  ’A little too military.  He must have been set up in England.’

‘Oh, Evan can do anything,’ said Andrew enthusiastically.  ’His father was a capital horseman, and taught him fencing, riding, and every accomplishment.  You won’t find such a young fellow, my lady—­’

‘The brother like him at all?’ asked Lady Jocelyn, still eyeing the chase.

‘Brother?  He hasn’t got a brother,’ said Andrew.

Lady Jocelyn continued:  ‘I mean the present baronet.’

She was occupied with her glass, and did not observe the flush that took hold of Andrew’s ingenuous cheeks, and his hurried glance at and off the quiet eye of the Countess.  Miss Carrington did observe it.