issome in her black habit, cantered daintily out with
a laughing nod to Volney Sprague, who was watching her from the _Whig_
office over the way. His clerk was absent serving papers in Etruria,
and, hanging a mendacious "Back-in-1-Hour" sign on his outer door,
Shelby leaped down the stair.

In the public eye he grew more sedate, and trotted soberly out of the
business district in a direction contrary to that taken by his
neighbor. Then, of a sudden, he shamed John Gilpin with a right-about,
and, circling by side streets and quiet lanes the course he had just
covered, galloped countryward in pursuit. The manoeuvre was not new to
him. He had employed it on occasion to hoodwink Mrs. Grundy for Mrs.
Hilliard's sake, scrupulously meeting and leaving the lady outside the
corporation limits, a ruse which deceived nobody save the deceivers.
Nor was it effective now. Ruth passed Mrs. Bowers's argus-eyed bay
window, as did Shelby, and Mrs. Grundy had her speculative pickings of
the event.

Ruth spied pursuit where the turnpike elbowed sharply from the
outskirts. For a demure girl her smile was mischievous. Walking her
wiry little pony till the footfalls of Shelby's chestnut cob beat the
'pike a scant hundred yards behind, she flicked her animal ever so
lightly with her riding crop. The man saw a puff of dust, a twinkle of
little hoofs, and a lithe figure outlined for an instant against the
autumn sky as it sped over a hill and far away. The cob labored to the
crest and pondered his defeat. A half-mile down the unkempt old toll
road, where the goldenrod dropped stately bows to the purple aster, and
Bouncing Bet viewed their livelong philandering with scorn, was the
impertinent runt--walking! Down thundered the cob. No evasion now.
Two hundred yards, one fifty, one hundred yards, seventy-five, sixty,
even fifty--and again the pursued was spirited away in a cloud.

Shelby bore it thrice, and raised his voice. Ruth's surprise was a
delightful thing to see.

"I've tried these three miles to overtake you," he scolded. "You must
have heard me."

Ruth surveyed the smoking cob.

"We did hear a noise. My pony is so restive."

"The little beast looks as demure as yourself. I believe you knew it
was I."

Ruth's glance swept a neighboring field.

"Have you ever associated cabbages with beauty?" she asked. "Just look
at that reach of blue-green."

Shelby admired obediently. Then, the occasion seeming to demand a