Leicester seemed to have more confidence in his own resources than I had; but he was in too great a state of excitement to listen to any demurrers of mine on the point, and hurried us off to join his friends. Ushered into the drawing-room A.1. of the Saracen's Head, we found _la bella_ Flora awaiting us alone, the rest of the family being not as yet visible. There was not the slightest necessity for inquiring whether she felt fatigued, for she was looking even more lovely than in the morning; or whether she had been amused or not, for if the steeple-chase had not delighted her, something else had, for there was a radiant smile on her face which could not be mistaken. Hurst was cut short rather abruptly in a speech which appeared tending towards a compliment, by Leicester's inquiring--"My good fellow, have you seen the horses fed?"
"Well, I have then; but I wish you would just step across the yard, and see if that stupid ostler has rubbed them dry, as I told him. You understand those things, I know, Hurst--the fellows won't humbug you very easily; as to Hawthorne, I wouldn't trust him to see to anything of the sort. Flora here knows more about a horse than he does."
Any compliment to Hurst's acuteness in the matter of horse-flesh was sure to have its effect, and he walked off with an air of some importance to discharge his commission.
"Now, then," said Horace eagerly, "we have got rid of him for ten minutes, which was all I wanted; if you please, Flora dear, we must have your cleverness to help us in a little difficulty."
"Indeed!" said Miss Leicester, colouring a little, as her cousin, in his eagerness, seized her hand in both of his--"what scrape have you got into now, Horace, and how can I possibly help you?"
"Oh, I want you to hit upon some plan for keeping that fellow Hurst here after we are gone."
"Stay; you don't know what I mean. I'll tell you why--if he drives home to Oxford, he'll infallibly upset us; and drive he must if he goes home with us, because, in fact, the team is his, and I drove them all the way here, and it's his turn back, you see."
"Then why, in the multitude of absurdities which you Oxonians perpetrate--I beg your pardon, Mr Hawthorne--but why need you have come out in a tandem at all, with a man who can't drive?"