A Girl of Virginia. Lucy M. Thruston
"If father will let me," with one imploring glance fatherward.
"Yes, in a moment, wait!"
"Father, they are going to have a fox-hunt to-morrow—Orange Grove, you know—meet at eight o'clock. Mr. Payne bought the fox from a colored boy to-day, he has it out at his house. They are going to turn it loose on the hill. It's a big red fox, he says." She slipped down on the side of his chair.
"Great Heavens! You don't want to go?"
Frances never answered, she only held on to him a little tighter.
"Frances, you know, since—"
"Starlight did behave dreadfully that time," she assented.
"Starlight!"
"Suppose I ask Mr. Payne to let me have a mount?"
"Daughter," the father was speaking quite sternly, "you know I told you I never wanted you to ride behind the hounds again."
There was dead silence. Frances got to her feet and went over to the mantelpiece, eyes downcast, red mouth down-curved.
"You might drive out to the meet," began her father.
A flash of her eyes answered him.
"I'll order the trap right now!" she said quickly.
"Now, it's late!" began the professor, not liking to be taken so literally at his word. "I don't think there is any one at the stables."
"Mr. Payne telephoned from there; I told him to wait a moment. I'll try again."
The professor listened anxiously to the whir and then to the monologue in the hall.
"Is Mr. Carver there? Yes! So glad!" and then, after a minute's wait, "Can you send Starlight and the trap up by seven? Seven? Yes! And Mr. Carver, please see that he is hitched up strongly, will you?"
She hung up the receiver. At the foot of the stairs she paused. "You don't mind if I drive along the road and follow them a little if I can, do you?" she asked laughingly.
The professor ran his hand over his perplexed face and picked up his book; he had no answer. At any rate he felt he had had his say about young Lawson and so he must not be too severe about this. He little knew he had given that young man the very clue he needed: for some hour of that night when the stars grew pale and the gay party in Lawson's room was breaking up, one of the men vowed he must have an hour's sleep to steady his nerves for the fox-hunt to-morrow; it was Saturday, and—
"Fox-hunt," cried Lawson.
"Yes; want to go? Meet me at the stables!" and it was arranged then and there.
The fox-hunt was sufficient, but Lawson's last waking thoughts were the professor's words, spoken carelessly that evening, "Frances hasn't missed a fox-hunt for years."
III
At seven o'clock Frances was warming her cold fingers over Susan's red-hot stove and making some show of drinking the coffee and eating the toasted roll the old darkey, with much grumbling, had gotten ready.
"Don't see what yuh wants to go trapsin' off for dis time o' day, nohow, ridin' arter dem hounds. Dey's low down dogs, anyhow; always did 'spise er houn' ebin ef 'tis chasin' er fox."
"Pshaw, Susan, you know you don't know anything about it!" bantered Frances.
"Don't, don't I? Well, I 'spec I knows sumpin' 'bout de time dey brought you home las' wintah laid out in a drag wid de blood all ober yo does an' dat cut right up dyar, right on de forehead; little more to de lef, an' yuh wou'dn't be standin' hyar; an' yo' hyar jes does hide de scar now. Tell yuh, honey," she went on solicitously, coming up close to Frances, "young gals cyarnt tek no chances wid de looks nohow, dat's a fac'! Don't go smash yo'self up!"
"There's the trap!" cried Frances, delighted to put an end to such forebodings. "Good-by; give father a nice breakfast!" and she went running out into the hall.
She opened the heavy outer door softly. The frosty air struck her like a blow. She looked over her shoulder. Susan was not watching her off. She ran back and swooped down on the black skin rug at the foot of the polished stair and flung it over her arm.
"Just like them to put a linen robe in the trap this morning! I would freeze."
She closed the big door quietly. Her father was asleep. Outside, the long corridor stretched deserted and dusky; the quadrangle was in heavy shadow; the white frost glittered on the grass, on the edge of the brick pavement to the corridor, and on the balcony rails running from house to house overhead; the scarlet and yellow leaves drifted from the maples; the young girl caught a whirl of them in her long skirt and carried them rustling in her train as she hurried along. Starlight was tied to the rail outside the quadrangle and she laughed as she saw the linen robe.
"I'm ahead of them this time!" she said to herself as she stood up and folded the great rug about her and turned up the fur collar of her coat and snapped the heavy driving-gloves on her wrists. The mountain air was cold at that hour, the tingle of it was in Starlight's blood as well as in his driver's. He gave a few friskings of balancing on his hind legs and pawing with the others wildly in air before he settled down to business. Frances, turning her head for fear Susan would see, had one swift gleam of the old darkey's wrinkled, anxious face at an upstairs window, watching her off, after all. She had only a glimpse, Starlight, his head tucked down far as his rein allowed, was tearing down the drive.
She took the short cut this time; down the steep hill beneath the lower quadrangle where the buildings towered straight overhead like a sheer precipice crowned with white, and flecked with scarlet where the ivy crept; out by the curving road from whence she glimpsed the far-off crests of the Ragged Mountains showing the morning light upon their tawny sides; through the town, for a short distance, and then sharply off to a country road.
The trap bumped and jostled. Sparks flew from Starlight's heels when they pounded the rough rocks; sparks flew from the wheels as they rolled over rock and hard red clay. Down in the valley, where the mist still clung like a veil above the clear brown stream, the little plank bridge rattled loudly as they flew over; and now, as they breasted the long high hill beyond, the frosty air echoed with the clear mellow music of a horn wound lustily and with the deep impatient bayings of the hounds. Frances leaned over the dashboard and shook the reins impatiently.
"Get up, Starlight!" she cried.
Again the horn wound its call—clear, shrill, the soul note of the frosty morning. Frances turned her head; behind her were horsemen clattering down the way; on the road which met hers at the hill-top she could hear the sharp sounds of beating hoofs. The sun was rolling up the gray clouds on the horizon's edge, and the blue vault overhead, with slow reluctance, was throwing off the soft veil of fleecy clouds; the gray of the early autumn morning was changing to opalescent hues above the mountain tops.
The horsemen behind were closer, were abreast of her; she turned to see Lawson on one side, his fellow-student on the other.
"Going to ride?" Lawson called, with a mischievous glance at the heavy trap.
Frances shook her head, outwardly she was gay enough, inwardly she was fuming.
Lawson's mount was irreproachable, so were his clothes.
"Heard we went fox-hunting up here before he came," accused Frances mentally; "got them all ready for the occasion."
But in truth Lawson was not conscious at all. He had lost his head, as every one else was doing, at the clattering hoof-beats and the insistent clarion-callings of the horn and the wild, impatient bayings of the hounds.
On the plateau cresting the hill-top, the whole scene burst upon his view; roads from many directions met and intersected beneath the oaks, on all of them hunters were hurrying—women,