But this time Mary was in full sympathetic communion with her friend,
and equal to any incoherent hiatus of revelation.

"No!" she said promptly, "you don't mean it!"

"Don't ask me, I daren't say anything to papa, for he'd be simply
furious. But there are times when we're alone, and Pedro wheels down so
near with SUCH a look in his black eyes, that I'm all in a tremble. It's
dreadful! They say he's a real Briones,--and he sometimes says something
in Spanish, ending with 'senorita,' but I pretend I don't understand."

"And I suppose that if anything should happen to the ponies, he'd just
risk his life to save you."

"Yes,--and it would be so awful,--for I just hate him!"

"But if I was with you, dear, he couldn't expect you to be as grateful
as if you were alone. Susy!" she continued after a pause, "if you just
stirred up the ponies a little so as to make 'em go fast, perhaps he
might think they'd got away from you, and come dashing down here. It
would be so funny to see him,--wouldn't it?"

The two girls looked at each other; their eyes sparkled already with
a fearful joy,--they drew a long breath of guilty anticipation. For a
moment Susy even believed in her imaginary sketch of Pedro's devotion.

"Papa said I wasn't to use the whip except in a case of necessity,"
she said, reaching for the slender silver-handled toy, and setting
her pretty lips together with the added determination of disobedience.