'But we'll mount you. I know that you are a horsewoman.' In answer to which Miss Furnival confessed that she was a horsewoman, and owned also to having brought a habit and hat with her.
'That will be delightful. Madeline will ride also, and you will meet the Miss Tristrams. They are the famous horsewomen of this part of the country.'
'You don't mean that they go after the dogs, across the hedges.'
'Indeed they do.'
'And does Miss Staveley do that?'
'Oh, no—Madeline is not good at a five-barred gate, and would make but a very bad hand at a double ditch. If you are inclined to remain among the tame people, she will be true to your side.'
'I shall certainly be one of the tame people, Mr. Staveley.'
'I rather think I shall be with you myself; I have only one horse that will jump well, and Graham will ride him. By-the-by, Miss Furnival, what do you think of my friend Graham?'
'Think of him! Am I bound to have thought anything about him by this time?'
'Of course you are;—or at any rate of course you have. I have no doubt that you have composed in your own mind an essay on the character of everybody here. People who think at all always do.'
'Do they? My essay upon him then is a very short one.'
'But perhaps not the less correct on that account. You must allow me to read it.'
'Like all my other essays of that kind, Mr. Staveley, it has been composed solely for my own use, and will be kept quite private.'
'I am so sorry for that, for I intended to propose a bargain to you. If you would have shown me some of your essays, I would have been equally liberal with some of mine.' And in this way, before the evening was over, Augustus Staveley and Miss Furnival became very good friends.
'Upon my word she is a very clever girl,' he said afterwards, as young Orme and Graham were sitting with him in an outside room which had been fitted up for smoking.
'And uncommonly handsome,' said Peregrine.
'And they say she'll have lots of money,' said Graham. 'After all, Staveley, perhaps you could not do better.'
'She's not my style at all,' said he. 'But of course a man is obliged to be civil to girls in his own house.' And then they all went to bed.
