The Countess dared no longer instance the Count, her husband. She was heard to murmur that citizen feelings were not hers:
'You suggested Fallow field to Melville, did you not?' asked Lady
Jocelyn.
'It was the merest suggestion,' said the Countess, smiling.
'Then you must really stay to see us through it,' said her ladyship.
'Where are they now? They must be making straight for break-neck fence.
They'll have him there. George hasn't pluck for that.'
'Hasn't what?'
It was the Countess who requested to know the name of this other piece of
Providence Mr. George Uplift was deficient in.
'Pluck-go,' said her ladyship hastily, and telling the coachman to drive to a certain spot, trotted on with Andrew, saying to him: 'I'm afraid we are thought vulgar by the Countess.'
Andrew considered it best to reassure her gravely.
'The young man, her brother, is well-bred,' said Lady Jocelyn, and Andrew was very ready to praise Evan.
Lady Jocelyn, herself in slimmer days a spirited horsewoman, had correctly estimated Mr. George's pluck. He was captured by Harry and Evan close on the leap, in the act of shaking his head at it; and many who inspected the leap would have deemed it a sign that wisdom weighted the head that would shake long at it; for it consisted of a post and rails, with a double ditch.