"It's not sporty of you, though," grumbled Sadie. "You know perfectly well we _can't_ get a third pony, and everybody in the school is saying how hard it is for you to monopolize one entirely to yourself. There are six other girls who'd be glad to learn riding if they could get a mount." "Then let them write home to their fathers to send them ponies." "As if they could! But their fathers would let them take lessons if there were a school pony for them. I know that for a fact." "Well, they shan't have mine, at any rate," rapped out Diana defiantly. "You just needn't think it, so there!" One afternoon it was Wendy's turn for the school pony. She and Diana and Miss Carr rode away together down the road to Chapelrigg. It was a gloriously fine day. Wild roses starred the hedgerows, and the beautiful blue speedwell bordered the lanes. Larks were singing, and, though the cuckoo had changed his tune, blackbirds still fluted in the coppices. They had come out on an errand--not a particularly romantic one, as it happened, only to pay a bill for Miss Todd at a farm-house a few miles away. If the errand was prosaic the farm and its surroundings looked attractive; it stood on a hill with a beautiful group of birch-trees behind it, and a small stream came rippling down at the bottom of the garden. The path from the high road was blocked by a cart left standing with a load of straw, so it would be impossible to ride the horses up to the door. The three riders dismounted, and Miss Carr, tying Baron to the fence, said she would walk up the lane and pay the bill while the girls waited for her in the road. Allowing Lady and Topsy to crop the grass in the hedge bottom, Diana and Wendy sat on the bank lazily enjoying themselves. It was very pleasant that afternoon to be alive. In that northern district although summer came late she made up for it by the extreme beauty with which she clothed the landscape; the view from the hill-side was like one of Turner's pictures. As the girls sat chatting, watching the ponies, and idly plucking flowers, they heard footsteps coming along the road, and presently a woman carrying a baby appeared round the corner. She was young and dark and gipsy-looking, and wore large ear-rings and a red cotton handkerchief knotted loosely round her brown throat. She stopped at the sight of Diana and Wendy and the ponies, and seemed to consider a moment. Then she walked boldly up to them, looked keenly in their faces, and evidently chose Diana. "Could you do me a kindness, miss?" she asked. "I've to go up to the farm for a basket. I don't want to carry the baby with me; she's so heavy. If I leave her here on the grass would you keep an eye on her till I come back? I shan't be gone five minutes."