Georgian epoch."

And with that, to our story!

CHAPTER I

Miracle, by St. Peter out of Three-to-a-Flush, a thoroughbred chestnut not quite good enough for steeple-chasing but considerably too good for that very quiet hunt, the Mid-Oxfordshire, was just out of his box, and pretty fresh. Looking over the flint wall which separated the well-kept gardens from the newly-swilled tiling of the stable-courtyard at Moor Park, the horse's questing eyes could just see, between clipped yew-trees, the red-brick façade of the modest Georgian house, its windows glinting in the March sunlight. Miracle knew that a footpath led straight across the gardens from the front door of the house to the white gate in the wall of his stable-courtyard; and suddenly, hearing a footfall on the path, he whinnied.

"All right, you," soothed Miracle's groom, a little lame man with tattooed forearms and a wry smile. The white gate clicked open, revealing Aliette.

Hector Brunton's wife had never accustomed herself to riding astride. Her small figure, in its short black habit and loose-fitting coat, looked modern enough. She wore the conventional bowler hat, white stock, and patent-leather riding-boots. Yet there was something old-fashioned about her, despite the fashionable get-up; something, to use an old-fashioned word, distinguished.

She closed the gate, and came slowly across the courtyard. Her yellow-gloved hands carried a thonged hunting-crop and a leather sandwich-case.

"You might fasten this on for me, Jenkins," said Aliette. The voice, low yet with each tone perfectly clear, held a hint of diffident shyness, alluring in so poised a creature.

While Jenkins busied himself with the sandwich-case and girthed up, Aliette held Miracle's head, gentling his nose with deft fingers, and explaining--half to herself and half to the horse--why she had brought no sugar for him.

"No sugar for gee-gees these days, Miracle. Not at the admiral's. Billy's mean about his sugar. Pity you don't drink port, Miracle dear. There's plenty of port."

She laughed at that; and it was as though you saw a woman transformed. Her face, smooth in repose, almost colorless save for the scarlet lips and the big wallflower-brown eyes under the dark lashes, broke into a hundred dimples. There were dimples at the corners of her mouth, in the 

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