some one to help them up, give them a cool drink and chance for a
moment's rest? _Were_ the big and the little things so close? One's own
kind and the other kind just one kind, after all?

"I love winding roads," Katie was saying, after a long silence. "I
suppose the thing so alluring about them is that one can never be sure
just what is around the bend. When I was a little girl I used to pretend
it was fairies waiting around the next curve, and I have never--"

But she drew in her horse sharply, for the moment at a loss; for it was
not fairies, but Captain Prescott, riding smilingly toward them, very
handsome on his fine mount.

"It's--one of our officers," she said sharply. "I--I'll have to
present him."

"Oh please--_please_!" was the girl's panic-stricken whisper. "Let me get
out! I must! I can't!"

"You _can_. You must!" commanded Katie. And then she had just time for
just an imploring little: "For my sake."

He had halted beside them and Katie was saying, with her usual cool
gaiety: "You care for this day, too, do you? We're fairly steeped in it.
Ann,"--not with the courage to look squarely at her--"at this moment I
present your next-door neighbor. And a very good neighbor he is. We use
his telephone when our telephone is discouraged. We borrow his books and
bridles; we eat his bread and salt, drink his water and wine--especially
his wine--we impose on him in every way known to good neighboring. Yes,
to be sure, this is Miss Forrest of whom I told you last night."