e
were many horses--the world was wide!

Dick turned his face homewards a little less adventurously, and it must
be confessed, with a growing sense of his folly. The keen, dry morning
air brushed away his fancies of the preceding night; the beautiful eyes
that had lured him thither seemed to flicker and be blown out by its
practical breath. He began to think remorsefully of his cousin, of his
aunt,--of his treachery to that reserve which the little alien household
had maintained towards their Spanish neighbors. He found Aunt Viney and
Cecily at breakfast--Cecily, he thought, looking a trifle pale. Yet (or
was it only his fancy?) she seemed curious about his morning ride. And
he became more reticent.

"You must see a good many of our neighbors when you are out so early?"

"Why?" he asked shortly, feeling his color rise.

"Oh, because--because we don't see them at any other time."

"I saw a very nice chap--I think the best of the lot," he began, with
assumed jocularity; then, seeing Cecily's eyes suddenly fixed on him, he
added, somewhat lamely, "the padre! There were also two women in a queer
coach."

"Donna Maria Amador, and Dona Felipa Peralta--her daughter by her first
husband," said Aunt Viney quietly. "When you see the horses you think
it's a circus; when you look inside the carriage you KNOW it's a
funeral."

Aunt Viney did not condescend to explain how she had acquired her
genealogical knowledge of her neighbor's family, but succeeded in
breaking the restraint between the young people. Dick proposed a ride
in the afternoon, which was cheerfully accepted by Cecily. Their
intercourse apparently recovered its old frankness and freedom, marred
only for a moment when they set out on the plain. Dick, really to forget
his preoccupation of the morning, turned his horse's head AWAY from
the trail, to ride in another direction; but Cecily oddly, and with an
exhibition of caprice quite new to her, insisted upon taking the old
trail. Nevertheless they met nothing, and soon became absorbed in the
exercise. Dick felt something of his old tenderness return to this
wholesome, pretty girl at his side; perhaps he betrayed it in his voice,
or in an unconscious lingering by her bridle-rein, but she accepted it
with a naive reserve which he naturally attributed to the effect of
his own previous preoccupation. He bore it so gently, however, that it
awakened her interest, and, possibly, her pique. Her reserve relaxed,
and by th