permission to go on fishing; but she was not very sorry for having
failed to do so, for after all, he had been poaching, and, as she had
said, poaching was in her eyes a crime.

She went down the road at a swift trot, and presently it was blocked by
a pair of wrought-iron gates, so exquisite in their antique
conscientiousness that many a mushroom peer would have given almost
their weight in gold to place them at the beginning of his newly made
park; but no one came to open them, they were closed by a heavily
padlocked chain, and the lodge beside them was empty and dilapidated;
and the girl rode beside the lichen-covered wall in which they stood
until she came to an opening leading to an old arch which faced a broad
and spacious court-yard. As she rode beneath the arch a number of dogs
yelped a welcome from kennels or behind stable half-doors, and a bent
old man, dressed like something between a stableman and a butler, came
forward, touching his forehead, to take her horse. She slipped from the
saddle, patted the horse, and murmured a word or two of endearment; but
her bright eyes flashed round the court-yard with a glance of
responsibility.

"Have you brought the colt in, Jason?" she asked.

Jason touched his forehead again.

"Yes, Miss Ida. It took me three-quarters of an hour; it won't come to
me like it does to you. It's in a loose stall."

"Saddle it to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will come and try it.
The brindle cow has got into the corn, and the fence wants mending down
by the pool; you must get William to help you, and do it at once. He