the patent leather and brass shone, and
we rode flower-covered. Ahead, Laddie and the Princess fairly tried
themselves. She hadn't put on her hat or habit after all. When Laddie
told her they were going to lead, she said: "Very well! Then I shall
go as I am. The dress makes no difference. It's the first time I've
had a chance to spoil one since I left England."

When the other girls saw what she was going to do, nearly every one of
them left off their hats and riding skirts. Every family had saddle
horses those days, and when the riders came racing up they looked like
flying flowers, they were all laughing, bloom ladened, singing and
calling jokes. Ahead, Laddie and the Princess just plain showed off.
Her horse came from England with them, and Laddie said it had Arab
blood in it, like the one in the Fourth Reader poem, "Fret not to roam
the desert now, With all thy winged speed," and the Princess loved her
horse more than that man did his. She said she'd starve before she'd
sell it, and if her family were starving, she'd go to work and earn
food for them, and keep her horse. Laddie's was a Kentucky
thoroughbred he'd saved money for years to buy; and he took a young one
and trained it himself, almost like a circus horse. Both of them COULD
ride; so that day they did. They ran those horses neck and neck, right
up the hill approaching Groveville, until they were almost from sight,
then they whirled and came sweeping back fast as the wind. The
Princess' eyes were like dead coals, and her black curls streamed, the
thin silk dress wrapped tight around her and waved back like a gossamer
web such as spiders spin in October. Laddie's hair was blowing, his
cheeks and eyes were bright, and with one eye on the Princess--she
didn't need it--and one on the road, he cut curves, turned, wheeled,
and raced, and as he rode, so did she.

"Will they break their foolish necks?" wailed mother.

"They are the handsomest couple I ever have seen in my life!" said
father.

"Yes, and you two watch out, or you'll strike trouble right there,"
said Sally, leaning forward.

I gave her an awful nudge. It made me so happy I could have screamed
to see them flying away together like that.

"Well, if that girl represents trouble," said father, "God knows it
never before came in such charming guise."

"You can trust a man to forget his God and his immortal soul if a
sufficiently beautiful woman comes along," said my mother dryly, a