But here we have something very different.  A grown lady is changed straightway into a fox.  There is no explaining that away by any natural philosophy.  The materialism of our age will not help us here.  It is indeed a miracle; something from outside our world altogether; an event which we would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested with the authority of Divine Revelation in the scriptures, but which we are not prepared to encounter almost in our time, happening in Oxfordshire amongst our neighbours.

The only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but guesswork, and I give them more because I would not conceal anything, than because I think they are of any worth.

Mrs. Tebrick’s maiden name was certainly Fox, and it is possible that such a miracle happening before, the family may have gained their name as a soubriquet on that account.  They were an ancient family, and have had their seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind.  It is also true that there was a half-tame fox once upon a time chained up at Tangley Hall in the inner yard, and I have heard many speculative wiseacres in the public-houses turn that to great account—­though they could not but admit that “there was never one there in Miss Silvia’s time.”  At first I was inclined to think that Silvia Fox, having once hunted when she was a child of ten and having been blooded, might furnish more of an explanation.  It seems she took great fright or disgust at it, and vomited after it was done.  But now I do not see that it has much bearing on the miracle itself, even though we know that after that she always spoke of the “poor foxes” when a hunt was stirring and never rode to hounds till after her marriage when her husband persuaded her to it.

She was married in the year 1879 to Mr. Richard Tebrick, after a short courtship, and went to live after their honeymoon at Rylands, near Stokoe, Oxon.  One point indeed I have not been able to ascertain and that is how they first became acquainted.  Tangley Hall is over thirty miles from Stokoe, and is extremely remote.  Indeed to this day there is no proper road to it, which is all the more remarkable as it is the principal, and indeed the only, manor house for several miles round.

Whether it was from a chance meeting on the roads, or less romantic but more probable, by Mr. Tebrick becoming acquainted with her uncle, a minor canon at Oxford, and thence being invited by him to visit Tangley Hall, it is impossible to say.  But however they became acquainted the marriage was a very happy one.  The bride was in her twenty-third year.  She was small, with remarkably small hands and feet.  It is perhaps worth noting that there was nothing at all foxy or vixenish in her appearance.  On the contrary, she was a more than ordinarily beautiful and agreeable woman.  Her eyes were of a clear hazel but exceptionally brilliant, her hair dark, with a shade of red in it, her skin brownish, with a few dark freckles and little moles.  In manner she was reserved almost to shyness, but perfectly self-possessed, and perfectly well-bred.