Lady Maulevrier divined, with the keen instinct of love, that she counted for very little in Lesbia's life, now that the whirligig of society, the fret and fever of fashion, had begun.
One afternoon in May, at that hour when Hyde Park is fullest, and the carriages move slowly in triple rank along the Lady's Mile, and the mounted constables jog up and down with a business-like air which sets every one on the alert for the advent of the Princess of Wales, just at that hour when Lesbia sat in Lady Kirkbank's barouche, and distributed gracious bows and enthralling smiles to her numerous acquaintance, Mary rode slowly down the Fell, after a rambling ride on the safest and most venerable of mountain ponies.

The pony was grey, and Mary was grey, for she wore a neat little homespun habit made by the local tailor, and a neat little felt hat with, a ptarmigan's feather.
All was very quiet at Fellside as she went in at the stable gate.

There was not an underling stirring in the large old stable-yard which had remained almost unaltered for a century and a half; for Lady Maulevrier, whilst spending thousands on the new part of the house, had deemed the existing stables good enough for her stud.

They were spacious old stables, built as solidly as a Norman castle, and with all the virtues and all the vices of their age.
Mary looked round her with a sigh.

The stillness of the place was oppressive, and within doors she knew there would be the same stillness, made still more oppressive by the society of the Fraeulein, who grew duller and duller every day, as it seemed to Mary.
She took her pony into the dusky old stable, where four other ponies began rattling their halters in the gloom, by way of greeting.