ng
lopes and fretted at being reined to suit the pace of the little
white horse, and Squire Eben had disliked riding from his youth,
unless at a hard gallop with gun on saddle, towards a distant lair of
game. Both he and the tall sorrel rebelled as to their nerves and
muscles at this ladylike canter over smooth roads, but the Squire
would neither permit his tender Lucina to ride fast, lest she get
thrown and hurt, or to ride alone.

Lawrence Prescott never asked her to ride with him in those days.
Lucina in her blue habit, with a long blue plume wound round her hat
and floating behind in the golden blowing of her curls, on her pretty
white horse, and the great booted Squire on his sorrel, to her side,
reined back with an ugly strain on the bits, were a frequent
spectacle for admiration on the county roads. No other girl in Upham
rode.

It was one day when she was out riding with her father that Lucina
made her opportunity to speak with Jerome. Now she had her horse,
Jerome was finding it harder to avoid the sight of her. The night
before, returning from Dale by moonlight, he had heard the quick
tramp of horses' feet behind him, and had had a glimpse of Lucina and
her father when they passed. Lucina turned in her saddle, and her
moon-white face looked over her shoulder at Jerome. She nodded;
Jerome made a stiff inclination, holding himself erect under his load
of shoes. Lucina was too shy to ask her father to stop that she might
speak to Jerome. However, before they reached home she said to her
father, in a sweet little contained voice, "Does he go to Dale every
night, father?"

"Who?" said the Squire.

"Jerome Edwards."

"No, I guess not every day; not more than once in three days, when
the shoes are finished. He told me so, if I remember rightly."

"It is a long walk," said Lucina.

"It won't hurt a young fellow like him," the Squire said, laughing;
but he gave a curious look at his daughter. "What set you thinking
about that, Pretty?" he asked.

"We passed him back there, didn't we, father?"

"Sure enough, guess we did," said the Squire, and they trotted on
over the moonlit road.

"Looks just like the back of that dapple-gray I had when you were a
little girl, Pretty," said the Squire, pointing with his whip at the
net-work of lights and shadows.

He never thought of any significance in the fact that for the two
following days Lucina preferred riding in the morning in another
direction, and on the thi