The prince was punctual to the minute. He was riding a noble English hunting horse, lent him by one of his American friends, and he sat him with the strength and grace that is the perfection of horsemanship. At the last moment Alys and Beth felt embarrassed to go down to greet their royal escort and hung back. But Natalie and Dirk led the way with quiet confidence, Dirk because he felt no shyness, taking the prince for granted, as he took Mr. Leonard; Natalie, because she was endowed with so much of her mother’s instinctive tact that her one thought was to set the prince at ease with them, the young Americans, to whom he had undertaken to be kind. The prince sprang from his horse and stood bareheaded, waiting, when the door opened and Mrs. Cortlandt came out, followed by her four young people. “Quite ready? That’s right,” cried the prince, after he had greeted Mrs. Cortlandt. “We must be off immediately, then. Ah, what noble horses!” he added. “That Kentucky type cannot be surpassed under saddle. And the little beggar from the Shetland isles! Now, could that belong to Judith Shakespeare?” His merry smile set Beth at ease completely. She shook her head hard. “That’s Trump; he belongs to Beth Bristead,” she said. “Let Beth Bristead mount him, then, and off we go! Let me give you a hand, Miss Natalie, Miss Alys and Beth Bristead.” The prince held his hand for Natalie’s foot and swung her into the saddle, then Alys. But Beth gave her hands to Tim and was jumped into the saddle and sat laughing on Trump when the prince was ready to do her like service. “This red bow is for the English flag,” Beth explained, touching the end of Trump’s flaring decoration, with much of its color leaping into her cheeks. “My word!” The prince laughed, swinging into his own saddle. “Indeed I’m flattered! I wish I had thought to tie red, white and blue on this chap of mine, but I’m stupid. Will your brother Dick--Dirk--precede, to guide us? Let us take a country road, if it does not need too long to get on one from your narrow city, which seems to be spreading out over the country, northward, like jam on a long stick of Italian bread.” “Oh, isn’t that just what it does!” cried Natalie appreciatively. She and Beth rode with the prince, Alys and Dirk preceded them, Tim in the rear. “We were going to take you on what we call the Quiet Road. There is a piece of good woods still standing about seven miles out; we love it, sir--prince----” Natalie stammered at the end of her sentence, not knowing what was the proper form of address for a young girl like her to use toward a royal personage.