Her eyes were flashing with joyous excitement. The thought that this entrancing little habit might foretell her little self on the back of a living horse was almost too much rapture to bear. She could not talk, but silently watched Frieda gather her thick fair hair into a compact braid and loop it at her neck with a broad blue ribbon. Then she silently allowed her maid to divest her of her dainty morning gown and slip over her groomed head the riding skirt that was so entirely the correct sort that her head swam with the joy of it. A tailored little vest preceded the perfect-fitting coat. Beth surveyed herself in the glass, while she absent-mindedly pulled on the gauntlet riding gloves which Frieda offered her. “I’m so glad I could cry!” said Beth tremulously, tears actually in her shining eyes. “I’m not going to believe I am going to ride for fear I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t. When Janie and I used to put on grown-up skirts and get up on the apple tree boughs to pretend to ride we never, never could have dreamed one of us could ever look like this! It’s exactly like the ladies in the pictures in the Waverley novels! I’m going to remember it’s enough to have such a riding habit to visit the stable in, and not mind if I don’t ever ride.” This time Frieda allowed herself to laugh at her small lady. “That would be a queer reason for your aunt to take such pains in having this habit made, Miss Beth. You’ve no idea the pains she took, stealing your gowns from me so the tailor shouldn’t make a mistake in fitting and yet you know nothing of it,” she said. “I shall never live long enough, nor be good enough, nor--nor anything!--to show Aunt Alida how I love, love, adore her!” cried Beth. She took her hat, set it on her smooth hair, caught her breath and snatched the hat off again. She made a deep bow to herself in the long glass, saluting with the hat in her hand, in quite a soldierly way. “Hail, Elizabeth Bristead, my lady!” she said. “You are wonderful, because you used to be nothing in all this world but little Beth! Come, my lady; we’re going to ri--to visit the stable!” Whereupon with a grand parting flourish of the hat, she set it once more upon her head and ran out of the room, quite as though she were still “little Beth.” “Oh, doesn’t she look fine!” cried Natalie as Beth appeared. The others were assembled, waiting her. “Her face rising up out of that habit looks like a pretty doll’s face over the top of a black Christmas stocking.” “Natalie, Natalie!” laughed her mother. “Does this mean a poet or a painter? But you _are_ a satisfactory small thing in that habit, Bethie!” “I ought to be! I wish I could thank you,” cried Beth, giving her aunt a hug that emphasized the wish. “Come now, gushing ladies of assorted sizes, the car’s chugging away outside impatiently,” Mr. Cortlandt protested.