or put you on the horse and walked beside you!"

"A gentleman would, I know," I replied. "But it would not be so easy for
a lady!"

_"She_ could have done either well enough. She's as strong as a horse
herself, and rides like an Amazon. But I am not in the least surprised:
it was just like her! You poor little darling! It nearly makes me cry to
think of the tiny feet going tramp, tramp, all that horrible way, and
she high up on her big horse! She always rides the biggest horse she can
get!--And then never to say a word to you after she brought you home, or
see you the next morning!"

"Mr. Day," I returned, "I would not have told you, had I known it would
give you occasion to speak so naughtily of your mother. You make me
unhappy."

He was silent. I thought he was ashamed of himself, and was sorry for
him. But my sympathy was wasted. He broke into a murmuring laugh of
merriment.

"When is a mother not a mother?" he said. "--Do you give it up?--When
she's a north wind. When she's a Roman emperor. When she's an iceberg.
When she's a brass tiger.--There! that'll do. Good-bye, mother, for the
present! I mayn't know much, as she's always telling me, but I do know
that a noun is not a thing, nor a name a person!"

I would have expostulated.

"For love's sake, dearest," he pleaded, "we will not dispute where only