210 WHIP AND SPUR. 



Pictures and descriptions had suggested it, but 

 they had only suggested it. This was the real- 

 ity, and it far exceeded my anticipation. The 

 grounds were fairly alive with a brilliant com- 

 pany of men and women, — happy and hearty, 

 and just gathered for the day's sport. Red coats, 

 white breeches, and top-boots were plenty, and 

 the neat holiday air of the whole company was 

 refreshing and delightful. Scattered about sin- 

 gly and in groups, mounted, on foot, and in car- 

 riages, were a couple of hundred people of all 

 ages and of all conditions. Chatting from the 

 saddle and over carriage-doors, lounging up and 

 down the Drive, or looking over the hounds, the 

 company were leisurely awaiting the opening of 

 the ball. They had come from a circuit of twenty 

 miles around, and they appeared to be mainly 

 people who habitually congregate at the cover- 

 side throughout the hunting-season, and to be 

 generally more or less acquainted with each other. 

 The element of coquetry was not absent ; but 

 coquetry is apparently not a natural product of 

 the English soil, and that sort of intercourse was 



