dirty. The most conspicuous things about him were his large, wistful
eyes, and his broad smile that showed where his teeth were going to
be. Across his narrow chest a ragged elbowless coat was hitched
together by one button, while a pair of bare, spindling legs dwindled
away respectively into a high black shoe, and a low-cut tan one, both
of which were well ventilated at the heels.

"I don't believe he's very bad," smiled Miss Lady, catching his chin
in her hand and turning his face up to hers. "Are you, Chick?"

He made a queer guttural sound in his throat but, his official
interpreter being by this time absorbed in the horses, was unable to
make himself understood.

"It must be awful for a boy not to be able to ask questions!" she went
on, looking down at him, then seeing something in his face that other
people missed, she suddenly drew him to her and gave him a little
motherly squeeze.

The ride home was somewhat leisurely, for the accident, slight as it
was, had sobered the riders, and there was, moreover, a subject under
discussion that called for considerable earnest expostulation on one
side, and much tantalizing evasion on the other.

"It all depends upon you," Donald was saying, as they climbed the last
hill. "Cropsie Decker starts for the coast to-morrow but the steamer
doesn't sail for ten days. Shall I go or stay?"

"But you were so mad about it two weeks ago, you could scarcely wait
to start."