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real state of nerves. Louisa was now teasing me with the
Constant Nymph
. She read aloud the last chapters, and soon I was dying at a Brussels boarding-house, in the arms of Aunt Emily’s husband.
    On Wednesday Aunt Emily rang up Aunt Sadie, and they talked for ages. The telephone at Alconleigh was, in those days, situated in a glass cupboard half-way down the brilliantly lighted back passage; there was no extension, and eavesdropping was thus rendered impossible. (In later years it was movedto Uncle Matthew’s business-room, with an extension, after which all privacy was at an end.) When Aunt Sadie returned to the drawing-room she said nothing except: ‘Emily is coming to-morrow on the three-five. She sends you her love, Fanny.’
    The next day we all went out hunting. The Radletts loved animals, they loved foxes, they risked dreadful beatings in order to unstop their earths, they read and cried and rejoiced over Reynard the Fox, in summer they got up at four to go and see the cubs playing in the pale-green light of the woods; nevertheless, more than anything in the world, they loved hunting. It was in their blood and bones and in my blood and bones, and nothing could eradicate it, though we knew it for a kind of original sin. For three hours that day I forgot everything except my body and my pony’s body; the rushing, the scrambling, the splashing, struggling up the hills, sliding down them again, the tugging, the bucketing, the earth, and the sky. I forgot everything, I could hardly have told you my name. That must be the great hold that hunting has over people, especially stupid people; it enforces an absolute concentration, both mental and physical.
    After three hours Josh took me home. I was never allowed to stay out long or I got tired and would be sick all night Josh was out on Uncle Matthew’s second horse; at about two o’clock they changed over, and he started home on the lathered, sweating first horse, taking me with him. I came out of my trance, and saw that the day, which had begun with brilliant sunshine, was now cold and dark, threatening rain.
    ‘And where’s her ladyship hunting this year?’ said Josh, as we started on a ten-mile jog along Merlinford road, a sort of hog’s back, more cruelly exposed than any road I have ever known, without a scrap of shelter or windscreen the whole of its fifteen miles. Uncle Matthew would never allow motor-cars, either to take us to the meet or to fetch us home; he regarded this habit as despicably soft.
    I knew that Josh meant my mother. He had been with my grandfather when she and her sisters were girls, and my mother was his heroine, he adored her.
    ‘She’s in Paris, Josh.’
    In Paris – what for?’
    ‘I suppose she likes it.’
    ‘Ho,’ said Josh, furiously, and we rode for about half a mile in silence. The rain had begun, a thin cold rain, sweeping over the wide views on each side of the road; we trotted along, the weather in our faces. My back was not strong, and trotting on a side-saddle for any length of time was agony to me. I edged my pony on to the grass, and cantered for a bit, but I knew how much Josh disapproved of this, it was supposed to bring the horses back too hot; walking, on the other hand chilled them. It had to be jog, jog, back-breaking jog, all the way.
    ‘It’s my opinion,’ said Josh at last, ‘that her ladyship is wasted, downright wasted, every minute of her life that she’s not on a ’oss.’
    ‘She’s a wonderful rider, isn’t she?’
    I had had all this before from Josh, many times, and could never have enough of it.
    ‘There’s no human being like her, that I’ve ever seen,’ said Josh, hissing through his teeth. ‘Hands like velvet, but strong like iron, and her seat – I Now look at you, jostling about on that saddle, first here, then there – we shall have a sore back to-night, that’s one thing certain we shall.’
    ‘Oh, Josh – trotting. And I’m so tired.’
    ‘Never saw her tired. I’ve seen