“I am sure I cannot imagine.”
“That she would like to hold a class to teach young men manners?”
“Were you to be a pupil?”
“Of course! I shouldn’t wonder if my would-be teacher comes to grief to-morrow. It’s a nasty country, tricky fences, and, by Jove! by all accounts, she has got a horse to match.”
“Why does her father allow her to ride him?”
“Allow her! It’s little you know Dolly Chalgrove. She allows him to hunt—she allows him to call his soul his own! He gives her a very loose rein; he is a widower, you see, and she’s his only child, and very clever and taking, and like a sister of his that was ill-treated and that died, and so he makes it up to Dolly. Capital business for Dolly, eh?”
“Yes, I suppose it is, in some ways.”
“A wonderful girl to ride to hounds, has a string of hunters and pays top prices; very odd, but very good-hearted and genuine—no nonsense about her. They say she is to marry Somers. I’m not sure that he quite sees it, but his mother is awfully keen on it. He will be Lord Chalgrove if he lives long enough; his father is the next male heir, and it would be a sound thing to keep the money and the title in the same family. The Somers are fearfully hard up.”
“Are they?”