Willy, at all times a carefully attired person, was to-day absolutely resplendent in his red coat and buckskins, and as we rode slowly down the avenue, I was impelled to tell him how smart both he and the mare looked. He beamed upon me with a simple satisfaction.
“Do you think so? Well, now, do you know what I was thinking? That no matter how good-looking a girl is, she always looks fifty per cent. better on a horse.”
“That is a most ingenious way of praising your own horse,” I said.
“Ah now, you know what I mean quite well,” rejoined Willy, with a look which was intended to be sentimental, but, by reason of his irrepressibly good spirits, rather fell away into a grin.
The meet was to be at the Clashmore cross-roads, and we passed many people on their way there. White-flannel-coated country boys and young men—“going for the best places to head the fox,” as Willy observed with bitterness, and little chattering swarms of national-school children. Every now and then a young farmer or two came clattering along, on rough, short-necked horses, whose heavy tails swung from side to side as they trotted at full speed past us, and an occasional red coat gave a reality to the fact that I was going out fox-hunting. The cross-roads were now in sight, and I saw a number of riders and people who had driven to see the meet, waiting for the hounds to come up.
“Why, I declare, here are the two Miss Burkes coming along in that old shandrydan of theirs with the bedridden grey pony!” said Willy, looking back. “Hold on, Theo. I must introduce you to them; they’re great specimens.”
We allowed the pony-carriage to overtake us, and Willy, pulling off his hat with as fine a flourish as his gold hatguard would allow, asked leave to introduce me.
“With the greatest of pleasure, Willy. Indeed, we’d no idea till yesterday, when we met Doctor Kelly in town, that Miss Sorsefield had arrived.” This from the elder Miss Burke, a large, gaunt lady with a good-humoured red face and an enormous Roman nose, and a curiously deep voice, whose varying inflections ran up and down the vocal scale in booming cadences.
“You ought to be riding the pony, Miss Burke. She looks in great form.”
“Oh, now, Willy! you’re always joking me about poor old Zoé. You’re very naughty about him. Isn’t he, Bessy?”