us the pack tore ever onward, their sterns and noses mostly to the
ground, their music rising at intervals--a confused medley of sound in
various cadences, above which a single, deep, bell-like note seemed ever
prominent, insistent.

"That's Merry Boy," Dulcie exclaimed as she began to steady her mount--a
stiff post-and-rails was fifty yards in front of us. "I know his voice
well. Dan always declares that Merry Boy couldn't blunder if he
tried"--I knew Dan to be the huntsman.

On and on the pack swept, now heading apparently for a cover of dark
pines visible upon a hill to the left of us, away against the skyline.
In front of us and to right and left horses were clearing fences, which
here were very numerous, some jumping well and freely, some blundering,
some pecking on landing, a few falling. Yet, considering the size of the
field, there was very little grief.

"Who is the girl in the brown habit?" I asked Dulcie, soon after we had
negotiated a rather high-banked brook. I had noticed this girl in the
brown habit almost from the beginning of the run--tall, graceful, a
finished horsewoman, mounted on a black thoroughbred, and apparently
unaccompanied, even by a groom.

"That?" Dulcie exclaimed, bringing her horse a little nearer, so that
she need not speak too loud. "Oh, she is something of a mystery. She is
a widow, though she can't be more than twenty-four or five. She lives at
the Rook Hotel, in Newbury, and has three horses stabled there. She must
have been there a couple of months, now. A few people have called upon
her, including my father and Aunt Hannah, but nobody seems to know
anything about her, who she is or was, or where she comes from. Doesn't