ce Prescott caught me walking ten miles to get a dress
cut? I guess I won't!" she told herself.

"You are just the same as ever; you would never let anybody do
anything for you unless you paid them for it," said Lawrence, half
angrily. Then he added, bending low towards her, "But you would pay
me, measure pressed down and running over, by going with me--you know
that, Elmira."

Elmira lost her step again, and her voice trembled a little, though
she strove to speak sharply. "I like to walk," said she.

"And I tell you you're all tired out now," said Lawrence. "I can see
you pant for breath. Don't you know, I am going to be a doctor, like
father? Let me go back, and you wait here."

Elmira shook her pink bonnet decidedly.

"Well, then," said Lawrence, "I tell you what you must do." He
slipped off the mare as he spoke. "Now," he said, and there was real
authority in his voice, "you've got to ride. It's a man's saddle, and
you won't sit so very secure, but I'll lead the mare, and you'll be
safe enough."

Elmira shrank back. "Oh, I can't," said she.

"Yes, you can. Whoa, Betty. She's gentle enough, for all she's
nervous, and she's used to a lady's riding her. The daughter of the
man who sold her to father used to scour the country on her. Come,
put your foot in my hand and jump up!"

"What would people say?"

"There isn't a house for a good mile, and I'll let you get down
before you reach it if you want to; but I don't see what harm it
would be if the whole town saw us. Come." Lawrence smiled with
gentle importunity at her, and held his hand, and Elmira could not
help putting her little foot in it and springing to the bay mare's
back in obedience to his bidding.

Elmira, fluttering like a pink flower on the back of the bay mare,
who really ambled along gently enough with Lawrence's hand on her
bridle, journeyed for the next mile as one in a happy dream. She was
actually incredulous of the reality of it all. She was half afraid
that the jolt of the bay mare would wake her from slumber; she kept
her eyes closed in the recesses of her sun-bonnet. Here was Lawrence
Prescott, about whom she had dreamed ever since she was a child, come
home, grown up and grand, grander than any young man in town, grand
as a prince, and not forgetting her, knowing her at a glance, even
when her face was hidden, and making her ride lest she get
over-tired. She had scarcely seen him, to speak to him, since she was
sixteen. Doctor Pres