He had not been riding actually at her side all the morning.

Many men and two or three ladies had been talking to her.

But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and now he was again close by her horse's head.

Broughton Spinnies were in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth.

There was always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get away into those big woods belonging to the Duke,--where, as the Brake sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely end.