had been a naughty child; then composedly rode
him back to the two ladies.

"Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come
along!"

He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing
merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha
could not take her eyes off him.

She looked after them with a vague sense of envy,--this odd married
pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar,
except for one thing--the love which hallowed and perfected all. When
her own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all
that his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse
forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.

Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all
her wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and
entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across
the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths,
lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a
horseman as Duke Dugdale: a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things
women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so
steep, that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his
seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief
that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little
Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been
awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to
feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, "a man that could take
care of one."

"And how very foolish and helpless townfolk--drawing-room gentlemen,
appear in the country! I wonder," and she could not help telling him the
comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother--"I
wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?"

"What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away."

She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major
Harper and his coming down to Dorset.

Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute
afterwards he returned to his wife's side, bringing her a great bunch of
heather, with yellow gorse mixed, and made jokes about the Dorsetshire
saying, "When gorse is out of bloom kissing's out of season." And
evermore he looked secretly at her, to notice if she la