carriage similarly filled, and we are en route for the vernal shades of Beecham and the society of the sportsmen, with whom we are going for the first time to take luncheon. They have several times asked humbly enough for our society, but with the first lust of slaughter upon them Milly judged wisely that they were best left to their own and the birds' company. They are somewhat sated by now, though, for to-day is the 16th of the month.
How fast the days have slipped away! How utterly pleasant and sweet they have been! Let me not begin to rejoice over them though, lest evil ones follow. Far away I see a little soft cloud of grey under the trees, with dogs lying about. As we approach nearer it resolves itself into the gentlemen, who are lounging about, cigar in mouth, looking as cool, and fresh, and comfortable, as we are precisely the reverse. We all tumble out of the carriages anyhow, and make a dash through the gate, only longing to get into the shady woodland beyond. In the general scrimmage, Lord St. John tossed up nearest to me.
"Have we much farther to go?" I ask, looking with affection at a big tree we are hurrying past.
"Not much!" he says; "two or three minutes' walk, perhaps."
I don't think he has done much shooting this morning: he looks as if he had come out of a bandbox, and his wicked little eyes are fixed with doting fondness on Alice's vanishing tail, for with all my haste I am somehow the very last of all.
Everybody seems to have got badly matched to-day: Alice is with Captain Brabazon, Milly with Mr. Silvestre; Fane's back expresses intense disgust as he walks by the side of Mrs. Lister, and her daughter's head has a sulky air as seen in the company of Charles Lovelace, while—oh, wonder of wonders—Silvia Fleming has fallen to the lot of Paul Vasher, and Sir George Vestris gloomily stalks with that young woman's mother.
I am casting my eyes about the wood, and thinking how pretty
