th her occasionally,
was downtown also, and there remained nobody else to ride with. Also the
horses were to be sent to Silverside soon, and she wanted to use them as
much as possible while the Park was at its loveliest.

She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, sometimes with
Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and Nina drove there,
drinking the freshness of the young year--the most beautiful year of her
life, she told herself, in all the exquisite maturity of her
adolescence.

So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face
and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose
voiceless melody parted her lips.

Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their
perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers
of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she
saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers
flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green
fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood
world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning
fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big
cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's
leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this
earthly paradise.

It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted
her, and wheeling, joined her--a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted,
smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless
and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure.

"Upon my word," she said gaily, "you are certainly spring incarnate,
Miss Erroll--the living embodiment of all this!" She swung her
riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. "But
where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning? Is he
so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord
and master?"

"Do you mean Gerald?" asked Eileen innocently, "or Captain Selwyn?"

"Oh, either," returned Rosamund airily; "a girl should have something
masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should
have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come,
D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent--smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me!
All these wretched birds a-