A GENTLEWOMAN. 137 



young one is on his legs and Wynnerly is in the saddle. 

 A hard-riding farmer does it neatly enough, but Miss 

 Kitty, who has seen Wynnerly's cropper, checks her 

 horse and turns to the left, where a long string of men 

 are crossing a gap some two hundred yards away. 



Here comes Florence Earle. The chestnut mare has 

 reached at her bit a little at starting, but the girl's light 

 hand has quieted her exuberance ; and at a steady gal- 

 lop, diminishing to a quiet canter, the pair approach. 

 If Wynnerly's young one had gone like this they would 

 have had a better chance. Instead of moderating its 

 speed, the four-year-old had got out of hand, and, with 

 the impetuosity of youth, gone at the timber racing pace, 

 with, if not the inevitable, the most probable, conse- 

 quences. Miss Earle's well-trained hunter knows her 

 duty thoroughly, decreases the stroke of her canter, and, 

 with an ease which seems nothing short of marvellous, 

 springs lightly over the stiff bars. For the moment you 

 wonder what there was in that little jump to turn Wyn- 

 nerly over, to cause Scatterly to make all the fuss about 

 it, and to stop nearly all the field. Here, however, 

 comes Downing on a well-known steeplechaser, which 

 refuses the first time, and only just manages it with 

 obvious effort on a second attempt, and it evidently is 

 not a simple matter to get over it. I confess to never 

 having even thought of attempting it. 



" What a beautiful horse ! " Miss Kitty says, a little 

 ungenerously. 



"And what a beautiful rider!" some one answers; 



