MISS BADSWORTH, M.F.H. 241 



Three white frosts and a gale of wind had upset all the 

 prognostications that the country would be so blind as to be 

 unridable when November came in. That transformation 

 had taken place which nature undergoes at the approach of 

 winter, sometimes so gradually that it steals in well-nigh 

 unobserved, sometimes so suddenly that the whole landscape 

 is altered in a single night. This latter was the case when 

 the 2nd of November dawned, the day of the Cranston 

 opening meet. 



" Crisp and bright ; probably no scent," Jack Morgan said 

 as he stretched himself whilst his man drew up the blinds, 

 arranged his hunting kit and placed a neatly folded brown 

 paper parcel on a vacant chair. 



Jack Morgan's toilette was approaching completion ere he 

 noticed it ; he had passed through the arduous ordeal of 

 tying the bows at the knees of a brand new pair of breeches 

 to his satisfaction, and had drawn on one brilliant top-boot 

 and inserted the hooks in the loops of the other when his 

 eye fell on that parcel and its superscription. He must have 

 recognised the handwriting, for he threw down the boot in a 

 manner which would have shocked his servant, and made a 

 dash for the package, failing to notice what a difference even 

 a thin boot makes in the evenness of one's progress when 

 the other foot is but stockinged. 



" Lavvy's handwriting, undoubtedly ; what could it be ? " 

 he thought, turning it over and carefully feeling the edges. 

 Flat, firm, and folded with professional accuracy, the parcel 

 itself kept its secret without giving the faintest hint. Great 

 minds have often proved their worth in emergencies (at least, 

 so we are told, though there are instances when what the 

 world calls little minds have gone one better). Sam Weller 

 advised his parent to solve the problem of " Who could 

 have written to him ? " by opening the letter, and the same 

 idea occurred to Jack, necessitating more unequal progress to 

 the dressing table to procure some instrument wherewith to 

 sever the string. Did any one, under hurried conditions, 

 ever find knife or scissors ? Jack did not, though they were 



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