cue my
abused hat from the dragon?" saying which she sent it spinning over
the fence.

Now the dragon was nothing less than a full grown and surly bull
grazing in the pasture.

Rodney, enraged at Mogridge's insolence and taunted by her words and
the sight of the hat scaling like a low-flying swallow, yielded to the
mad impulse to follow it. He would show the arrogant London youth what
a Virginia boy dared do!

The bull had lifted his head in amazement, which gave place to rage at
the red thing flashing before his sullen eyes. Snorting, he charged
just as the lad snatched the hat from the ground and, turning, ran
toward the fence.

It was a foolhardy deed, and the boy's chance of escape seemed
hopeless,--when the unexpected happened.

A little figure climbed the fence and with a shrill cry ran to meet
him, waving her red cloak to distract the brute's attention.

The boy started to run between the bull and the girl, but she
shrieked, "I'm all right. Run for your life!"

Had not the beast hesitated, uncertain which of the two was his
tormenter, this story would be brief indeed. Before Mogridge had
dismounted the two had reached safety.

The girl, almost breathless, turned to Rodney, stamped her foot and
between her gasps cried: "You--you--simpleton!"

Rodney Allison, being now in his right mind and a sensible lad,
realized the merited rebuke, though scarcely from the girl who had
dared him to make the venture.

"I fancy Squire Danesford will think you one too, Bess, when he hears
of you facing charging bulls like a Spanish picador, all to save
churlish fools from their folly," said her cousin, sneeringly.

"Don't you dare tell him! If you do I'll never speak to you again."
There was a tearful note in the girl's voice and a disagreeable one in
the youth's laugh.

Again he laughed and with flaming face she cried, "Perhaps you had
better tell him all while you're about it; how you sat your horse like
a pat of dough and watched me do it."

It was Rodney's turn to laugh, which he did most heartily, and
Mogridge, his face redder than his fancy waistcoat, wheeled his horse
and rode after the girl who was spurring ahead.

"I'd like to roll him in the mud and you'd like to have me do it,
wouldn't you, 'Omi?"

Naomi, trudging confidingly by his side, looked inquiringly out of her
big eyes, stars with plenty of dew on them now, for during the
excitement she had lifted up her voice in wailing and the tears had
fl