ck. She drew rein to watch it thunder by. Some
child at the window pointed a finger at her, and then two smiling little
faces were pressed against the pane for an eager glimpse. It was the
prettiest wayside picture the passengers had seen in all that morning's
travel--the Little Colonel on her pony, with the spray of locust bloom in
the cockade of the Napoleon cap she wore, and a plume of the same graceful
blossoms nodding jauntily over each of Tarbaby's black ears.

As the admiring faces whirled past her, Lloyd drew a long breath of
relief. "I'm glad that I don't have to do my riding in a smoky old car
this May mawnin'," she thought. "It is wicked for me to be so unhappy when
I have Tarbaby and all the othah things that mothah and Papa Jack have
given me. I know perfectly well that they love me just the same even if
they have forgotten my birthday, and I won't let such old black crow
thoughts flock down on me. I'll ride fast and get away from them."

That was harder to do than she had imagined, for as she passed Judge
Moore's place the deserted house added to her feeling of loneliness. Andy,
the old gardener, was cutting the grass on the front lawn. She called to
him.

"When is the family coming out from town, Andy?"

"Not this summer, Miss Lloyd," he answered. "It'll be the first summer in
twenty years that the Judge has missed. He has taken a cottage at the
seaside, and they're all going there. The house will stay closed, just as
you see it now, I reckon, for another year."

"At the seashore!" she echoed. "Not coming out!" She almost gasped, the
news was so unexpected. Here was another disappointment, and a very sore
one. Every summer, as far back as she could remember, Rob Moore had been
her favourite playfellow. Now there would be no more mad Tam O'Shanter
races, with Rob clattering along beside her on his big iron-gray horse. No
more good times with the best and jolliest of little neighbours. A summer
without Rob's cheery whistle and good-natured laugh would seem as empty
and queer as the woods without the bird voices, or the meadows without the
whirr of humming things. She rode slowly on.

There was no letter for her when she stopped at the post-office to inquire
for the mail. The girls on whom she called afterward were not at home, so
she rode aimlessly around the Valley until nearly lunch-time, wishing for
once that it were a school-day. It was the longest Saturday morning she
had ever known. She could not