Jupiter Ann quickened his gait perceptibly, and lifted his head. His
ears came erect.

"Whoa, Ann, whoa!" stammered Miss Prue nervously.

The hoof beats were almost abreast now, and hurriedly Miss Prue turned
her head. At once she gave the reins an angry jerk; in the other light
carriage sat Rupert Joyce, the young man who for weeks had been
unsuccessfully trying to find favor in her eyes because he had already
found it in the eyes of her ward and niece, Mary Belle.

"Good-morning, Miss Prue," called a boyish voice.

"Good-morning," snapped the woman, and jerked the reins again.

Miss Prue awoke then to the sudden realization that if the other's speed
had accelerated, so, too, had her own.

"Ann, Ann, whoa!" she commanded. Then she turned angry eyes on the young
man. "Go by--go by! Why don't you go by?" she called sharply.

In obedience, young Joyce touched the whip to his gray mare: but he did
not go by. With a curious little shake, as if casting off years of dull
propriety, Jupiter Ann thrust forward his nose and got down to business.

Miss Prue grew white, then red. Her hands shook on the reins.

"Ann, Ann, whoa! You mustn't--you can't! Ann, please whoa!" she
supplicated wildly. She might as well have besought the wind not to