"They shall go in, the day we are married; and I wish you would find somebody for the other. Now having made a pair of people happy and established a house, would you like a gallop?"
Eleanor's cheeks were hot, and she would very much; but she answered,
"One of Tippoo's gallops?"—
"You do not know them yet. You have tried only a mad gallop. Tippoo!" said Mr. Carlisle stooping and striking his riding glove against the horse's shoulder,—"I am going a race with you, do you hear?"
His own charger at the same time sprang forward, and Tippoo to match! But such a cradling flight through the air, Eleanor never knew until now. There seemed no exertion; there was no jar; a smooth, swift, arrowy passage over the ground, like what birds take under the clouds. This was the gentlest of gallops, certainly, and yet it was at a rare speed that cleared the miles very fast and left striving grooms in the distance. Eleanor paid no attention to anything but the delight of motion; she did not care where or how far she was carried on such magical hoofs; but indeed the ride was beyond her beat and she did not know the waymarks if she had observed them. A gradual slackening of this pace of delight brought her back to the earth and her senses again.
"How was that?" said Mr. Carlisle. "It has done you no harm."
"I do not know how it was," said Eleanor, caressing the head and neck of the magnificent animal she rode—"but I think this creature has come out of the Arabian Nights. Tippoo is certainly an enchanted prince."
"I'll take care he is not disenchanted, then," said Mr. Carlisle. "That gallop did us some service. Do you know where we are?"
"Not in the least."
"You will know presently."
And accordingly, a few minutes of fast riding brought them to a lodge and a gate.