But the woodmen will look after you, and give you no trouble." "Thank you!" said Constance, lightly, staying the mare for a moment.
"But surely some of the rides will be wanted directly for the pheasants?
Anyway I think I shall try the other side of Oxford.

They say Bagley is delightful.

Good-bye!" She passed through, made a signal to Joseph, and was soon trotting fast towards Oxford.
* * * * * On that return ride, Constance could not conceal from herself that she was unhappy.

Her lips quivered, her eyes had much ado to keep back the onset of tears--now that there was no Falloden to see her, or provoke her.

How brightly their ride had begun!--how miserably it had ended! She thought of that first exhilaration; the early sun upon the wood; the dewy scents of moss and tree; Falloden's face of greeting--"How can you look so fresh! You can't have slept more than four hours--and here you are! Wonderful! 'Did ever Dian so become a grove'-- " An ominous quotation, if she had only remembered at the time where it came from! For really his ways were those of a modern Petruchio--ways that no girl of any decent spirit could endure.
Yet how frank and charming had been his talk as they rode into the wood!--talk of his immediate plans, which he seemed to lay at her feet, asking for her sympathy and counsel; of his father and his two sisters; of the Hoopers even.