Jake watched the plump, anxious-faced Tory wincing over the churned-up ground in her tight shoes. She didn’t look like a girl who enjoyed anything very much.

“Did you have a nice lunch? I bet you had strawberries,” shrieked Fen, climbing onto Dandelion and gathering up the reins. “I’m just going to put Dandelion over a practice fence.

“This is my sister, Tory,” she added.

Jake looked at Tory with that measure of disapproval he always bestowed on strangers.

“It’s very hot,” stammered Tory.

“Very,” said Jake.

There didn’t seem much else to say.

Fortunately, Tory was saved by the microphone calling the competitors into the collecting ring.

“Mr. Lovell, I can’t get Stardust’s girths to meet, she’s blown herself out,” wailed Patty Beasley.

Jake went over and gave Stardust a hefty knee-up in the belly.

Fen came back from jumping the practice fence. Immediately Dandelion’s head went down, snatching at the grass.

“You pig,” squealed Fen, jumping off and pulling bits out of his mouth. “I just cleaned that bit. Where’s Mummy?” she added to Tory.

“Going over the garden with Lady Dorothy,” said Tory.

“She must be bored,” said Fen. “No, there she is over on the other side of the ring.”

Looking across, they could see Mrs. Maxwell standing beside Sally Ann Thomson’s mother, while Colonel Carter adjusted her deck chair.

“Colonel Carter stayed last night,” said Fen in disgust. “I couldn’t sleep and I looked out of the window at about five o’clock and saw him go. He looked up at Mummy’s bedroom and blew her a great soppy kiss. Think of kissing a man with an awful, droopy mustache like that. I suppose there’s no accounting for tastes.”

“Fen,” said Tory, blushing scarlet. She looked at Jake out of the corner of her eye to see if he was registering shock or amusement, but his face was quite expressionless.