"I dunno's I can say I'm surprised to see you, Lucindy," she began,
with the duteous aspect of one forced to speak her disapproval, "for I
ketched you comin' out o' the Pitmans' yard."

"Yes," said Lucindy, smiling, and plaiting her skirt between her
nervous fingers. "Yes, I went in to see if they'd let me take Old
Buckskin a spell to-morrow."

"What under the sun--" began Mrs. Wilson; but her husband looked at
her, and she stopped. He had become so used to constituting himself
Lucindy's champion in the old Judge's day, now just ended, that he kept
an unremitting watch on any one who might threaten her peace. But
Lucindy evidently guessed at the unspoken question.

"I should have come here, if I'd expected to drive," she said. "But I
thought maybe your horse wa'n't much used to women, and I kind o'
dreaded to be the first one to try him with a saddle."

Mrs. Wilson put down her hook again, and leaned back in her chair. She
looked from her husband to Lucindy, without speaking. But Lucindy went
on, with the innocent simplicity of a happy child.

"You know I was always possessed to ride horseback," she said,
addressing herself to Lothrop, "and father never would let me. And now
he ain't here, I mean to try it, and see if 'tain't full as nice as I
thought."

"Lucindy!" burst forth Mrs. Wilson, explosively, "ain't you goin' to
pay no respect to your father's memory?"