ghing so heartily
that one could not look at the picture without feeling the contagion of
her enjoyment. There was nothing she liked better than horseback riding,
she remarked as she laid the picture aside, but she had not tried it
since she was a child. That was one thing she was looking forward to in
her promised land, she told him, to owning a beautiful thoroughbred
saddle-horse, like Lloyd Sherman's.

Then Pink was shown "The Little Colonel's Corner," for the collection of
Lloydsboro Valley pictures were grouped in panels on one wall of the
Lone-Rock home as they had been at the Wigwam. First there was Lloyd in
her little Napoleon hat, riding on Tarbaby down the long locust avenue,
and then Lloyd on the horse that later took the place of the black pony.
Then Lloyd in her Princess Winsome costume, with the dove and the
spinning-wheel, and again in white, beside the gilded harp, and again as
the Queen of Hearts and as the Maid of Honor at Eugenia's wedding.

In showing these pictures to Pink and telling him how well Lloyd rode
and how graceful she was in the saddle, Mary forgot her casual remark
about her own enjoyment of riding, but Pink remembered. He had thought
about it at intervals ever since. Now catching sight of her on the high
stool, he hurried into the post-office to tell her that he could secure
two horses any morning that she would go out with him before breakfast.
His uncle owned the team of buckskins which drew the delivery wagon,
and was willing for him to use them any morning before eight o'clock.
They were not stylish-looking beasts, he admitted, like Kentucky
thoroughbreds, but they were sure-footed and used to mountain trails.

As Mary thanked him with characteristic enthusiasm, she was conscious of
a double thrill of pleasure. One came from the fact that he had planned
such enjoyment for her, the other that he had remembered her casual
remark and attached so much importance to it. She'd let him know later
just when she could go, she told him. She'd have to see her mother
first, and she'd have to get up some kind of a riding skirt.

Then the Captain threw up the delivery window, and half a dozen people
who had been waiting crowded forward to get their mail. Mary waited on
the stool while Pink took his turn at the window and came back with her
mail. His own, and that for the store, he drew out from one of the large
locked boxes below the pigeon-holes. While he was unlocking it Mary
looked over the