Sancho seemed to share the longing, for he kept running off a little
way and stopping to frisk and bark, then rushed back to sit watching
his master with those intelligent eyes of his, which seemed to say,
"Come on, Ben, let us scamper down this pleasant road and never stop
till we are tired." Swallows darted by, white clouds fled before the
balmy west wind, a squirrel ran along the wall, and all things seemed
to echo the boy's desire to leave toil behind and roam away as
care-free as they. One thing restrained him,--the thought of his
seeming ingratitude to good Mrs. Moss, and the disappointment of the
little girls at the loss of their two new play-fellows. While he paused
to think of this, something happened which kept him from doing what he
would have been sure to regret afterward.

Horses had always been his best friends, and one came trotting up to
help him now, though he did not know how much he owed it till long
after. Just in the act of swinging himself over the bars to take a
short cut across the fields, the sound of approaching hoofs,
unaccompanied by the roll of wheels, caught his ear, and pausing, he
watched eagerly to see who was coming at such a pace.

At the turn of the road, however, the quick trot stopped, and in a
moment a lady on a bay mare came pacing slowly into sight,--a young and
pretty lady, all in dark blue, with a bunch of dandelions like yellow
stars in her button-hole, and a silver-handled whip hanging from the
pommel of her saddle, evidently more for ornament than use. The
handsome mare limped a little and shook her head as if something
plagued her, while her mistress leaned down to see what was the matter,
saying, as if she expected an answer of some sort: