“Just like a bit of gold it is, for all the world! The same colour that angels’ hair is. Oh! my pretty one; my sweet one! There’s never a night I don’t go down on my knees and thank God that you don’t scorn me!” It is the morning after the State Ball, and while the other Beranger girls take an extra hour or two of slumber, Baby, fresh as a lark, dons her dark-blue habit that fits her lovely little figure like wax--and is off for a riding lesson. The weather is true summer, and the little lazy breeze that floats across the Serpentine is a boon to man and beast. Right away in the upper portion of Kensington Gardens, the trees throw down some grateful shade, and Challen’s riding-school wend their way down the broad walk at a snail’s pace, for the heat is awful. Up above there is not even a cloudlet to temper the sun’s rays; the sky is as clear and as blue as Baby’s own eyes, and everything around looks as bright as her smiles. There are not as many aspirants to equestrian honours as usual to-day. The season is on the wane, and the Ball and Reception givers pile on the agony fast and strong, so that the young _débutantes_, fagged and worn out by nocturnal exertions, find the arms of Morpheus more to their liking than the caresses of Boreas. Miss Juliana Edwards, a strong-minded, steel-nerved brunette, and Challen’s show pupil, is here, well to the front of the small cavalcade, but she does not ride the chesnut. Her dare-devil propensities find but small play, for her mount is a dapple-grey gelding, who looks as if neither whip nor spur will rouse him out of riding-school jog-trot. There are only eight riders in all, and the first lot go in threes, while some little distance in the rear Hargreaves keeps close to the chesnut, on whose back is Baby. “You’ll kindly look to the other ladies, Miss Edwards, won’t you?” he had said on starting, with a deprecatory smile. “I think I had better keep an eye to Miss Mirabelle Beranger’s horse. She doesn’t ride like _you_ do, you know!” And Miss Juliana Edwards, to whom a compliment on her horsemanship is dearer than anything, smiles in return at the handsome assistant, and agrees to keep a sharp look-out. The chesnut goes steadily enough--so steadily in fact, that Baby, who is an awful little coward, forgets all about him, and gives her whole attention to her teacher, who, in the neatest of grey tweed suits, and with an unimpeachable wide-a-wake perched jauntily on his curly head, looks quite _the gentleman_. “I _wish_ you had been at the State Ball last night!” she says, with a beaming smile, that almost takes the young fellow’s breath away. “_I!_ fancy me at a State Ball, Miss Mirabelle!” “Why not? I am sure there was no one so good-looking as you there!” she cries, looking admiringly at the trim, slight figure, and the straight features and undeniably winsome eyes of her companion. “I _wish_ you would not call me _Miss_ Mirabelle!” she adds with a little pout of her charming red lips.