It was quite natural that she should now walk her horse that Kurt might walk beside her, although it cost her a struggle with Pluto to induce him to agree to this new order of things. Kurt walked beside her, looking up at her with admiration. How graceful was her every movement as she reined in and controlled her impatient horse! She held the curb in a firm grasp, but there was nothing unfeminine in the strength thus put forth. For a while her whole attention was given to her horse, but when she had reduced him to a state of obedient quiescence she replied kindly to Kurt's greeting, and when he expressed his pleasure that a fortunate chance had again brought them together, she answered, with perfect freedom from embarrassment, that she also was much pleased. As she spoke, her smile was so arch that he could not but laugh. And then they laughed together like two children. They knew well what made them laugh, although they said no more about it. It sounded almost like an excuse when Celia said that she had come from home nearly a quarter of an hour later than usual this afternoon, old John had been so long saddling Pluto, but that she could not scold him, for he was very old now, almost seventy, and he had been up half the night helping her to hang oaken garlands all about her father's beloved garden-room, that he might be surprised by their beauty when Franz rolled him in from his bedroom at five o'clock on his birthday morning. And her father had been very much delighted,--he so loved his oaks,--and he had been specially pleased with a tobacco-bag that she had embroidered for him as a birthday gift. He was not very fond of embroidery, but he knew how hard it was for her to sit still at any kind of work, and he had been touched by the trouble she had taken for him. Thus Celia talked on, and Kurt listened with rapt attention, as if she were imparting to him the most important secrets. Her delight in the garlands of oak-leaves and in the completion of her gift for her father charmed him. He thought her almost more lovely now than when, a few moments before, her eyes had sparkled and flashed in her struggle with her horse. He did not know which to admire more, the blooming girl or the lovely child; he only knew that both were adorable.