Oh, come, now!" protested Sir Redmond feebly, and sucked furiously at
his pipe.

"Yes," reiterated Beatrice, examining his perturbed face judicially;
"you are downright ugly."

The face of Sir Redmond grew redder and more perturbed; just as
Beatrice meant that it should; she seemed to derive a keen pleasure from
goading this big, good-looking Englishman to the verge of apoplexy.

"I'm sure I never meant to be rude; but a fellow can't fall down and
worship every young farmer, don't you know--not even to please you!"

Beatrice smiled and threw a pebble down the slope, watching it bound and
skip to the bottom, where it rolled away and hid in the grass.

"I love this wide country," she observed, abandoning her torture with a
suddenness that was a characteristic of her nature. When Beatrice had
made a man look and act the fool she was ready to stop; one cannot say
that of every woman. "One can draw long, deep breaths without robbing
one's neighbor of oxygen. Everything is so big, and broad, and generous,
out here. One can ride for miles and miles through the grandest, wildest
places,--and--there aren't any cigar and baking-powder and liver-pill
signs plastered over the rocks, thank goodness! If man has traveled that
way before, you do not have the evidence of his passing staring you in
the face. You can make believe it is all your own--by right of
discovery. I'm afraid your England would seem rather little and crowded
after a month or two of this." She swept her hand toward the river, and
the grass-land beyond, and the mountains rimming the world.