tirrup, and one
hand on the saddle horn, and paused.

She could easily have flopped down in the road, and wept. Once he had
raged at her, once he had thrilled her with a look, and now he was
simply dismissing her,--leaving her, as her father would have put it,
"to stew in her own juice." She saw all her elaborate strategy, her
long vigil on the hill, her struggle with the saddle, her appealing'
glances--all, all about to go for nothing.

"He might at least help me on my horse!" she thought, in bitter
resentment.

Perhaps tears blinded her. At any rate--and this was without pretence,
and no part of her scheme--she did not see clearly what she was doing.
It was nothing new to mount her pony from the level; she had done it a
hundred times without mishap. But now, in her agitation, she stood
somewhat too far away from Tuesday's shoulder; and the pony, as ponies
will sometimes do, started forward the instant he felt the weight in
the stirrup.

"Look out!" cried Haig.

It was too late. She missed the saddle; her right foot struck
Tuesday's back, and slipped off; and she fell sprawling on the ground,
with her left foot fast in the stirrup.

"Whoa, Tuesday!" she cried shrilly as she fell.

Luckily the horse did not take alarm and run, as a less reliable
animal might have done, dragging the girl under his heels. He stopped
in his tracks, and stood obediently, even turning his head as if to
see what damage had been done. It was enough. Marion was uninjured,
but badly frightened; and her humiliation was complete. She lay on her
back, struggling vainly to extricate her foot from the stirrup. Her
coat skirts had fallen back, and--Thank Heaven for the riding
breeches, and not what she had worn under divided skirts!

"Lie still!" yelled Haig, remembering what he had seen happen to men
in such circumstances.

In three leaps he was at her side. With a swift movement (and none too
gentle), he wrenched her foot loose from the stirrup, and helped her
to sit up, dazed and trembling and very white.

"Your ankle--is it hurt?" he asked sharply.

"I don't know," she said.

And then the expected "inspiration of the moment" came.

"A little," she added.

And so it was done. Her foot had indeed been twisted slightly; she had
truly, _truly_ felt a twinge of pain. At another time she would have
thought no more about it, but now--The color rushed back into her
cheeks; she fetched a smile that was half a grimace; and the game was
o