her before--just seen her.'

Wych Hazel bowed--remembering with some amusement Mr. Rollo's
caracole on the former occasion all about Mrs. Coles.
Privately she wished she had not promised to stay to dinner.

'I was frightened to death at your riding'--the lady went on.
'Did your horse start at anything?'

'My horse starts very often when I am on him,' said Wych Hazel
laughing.

'Does he! And do you think that is quite safe?'

'Why not?--if I start too. The chief danger in such cases is in
being left behind.'

Wych Hazel was getting her witch mood on fast. Mrs. Coles
looked a trifle puzzled.

'But my dear!' she said, 'the danger of _that_, I should think,
would be if the other horse started.'

'O no, ma'am,' said Hazel gravely. 'My escorts never even so
much as think of running away from me.'

At that point Primrose's gravity gave way, and she burst into
a laugh. Mrs. Coles changed the subject.

'I have been very impatient to see one I have heard so much
of,' she began again. 'In fact I have heard of you always. I
should have called at Chickaree, but I couldn't get any one to
take me. Arthur, he was busy--and Dr. Maryland never goes
anywhere but to visit his people--Prim goes everywhere, but it
is not where I want to go, for pleasure; and Dane I asked, and
he wouldn't.'

'He did not say he wouldn't, Prudentia,' remarked her sister.

'He didn't say he would,' returned Mrs. Coles, with a peculiar
laugh; 'and I knew what that meant. O, I should have got there
some time. I will yet.'

Miss Kennedy bowed--she believed the fault must be hers. But
she had not quite understood--or had confused things--in her
press of engagements.

Mrs. Coles graciously assumed that there had been no failure
in that quarter. And Dr. Maryland came in, and the dinner. A
nice little square party they were, for Dr. Arthur was not at
home; and yet somehow the conversation flowed in more barren
channels than was ever the wont at that table in Wych Hazel's
experience. A great deal of talk was about what people were
doing; a little about what they were wearing; an enormous
amount about what they were saying. Part of this seemed to be
religious talk too, and yet what was the matter with it? Or
was it with Wych Hazel that something was the matter? Primrose
and Dr. Maryland then shared the trouble, for whatever they
said was in attempted diversion or correction or emendation.
Certainly among them all the talk did not languish.

There