The conversation was here interrupted, Elinor was engaged to ride with Mr. Wyllys, who now returned from the reading-room for his grand-daughter. Mrs. Creighton was also going out with her brother, and proposed the two parties joining; an invitation which Mr. Wyllys had very readily accepted. The horses were ordered, Elinor was soon equipped, and on joining Mrs. Creighton at the door, she was assisted to mount by Mr. Ellsworth. Mr. Stryker had also been invited to ride with them by the pretty widow. It was a lovely morning, and they moved off gaily on one of the roads leading to Saratoga Lake; Elinor enjoying the air and the exercise, Mr. Ellsworth at her side, doing his best to make his society agreeable, Mrs. Creighton engaged in making a conquest of the two gentlemen between whom she rode. Yes, we are obliged to confess the fact; on her part at least, there was nothing wanting to make up a flirtation with Mr. Wyllys. The widow belonged to that class of ladies, whose thirst for admiration really seems insatiable, and who appear anxious to compel all who approach them to feel the effect of their charms. Elinor would have been frightened, had she been aware of the attack made that morning by Mrs. Creighton, on the peace of her excellent grandfather, now in his seventy-third year. Not that the lady neglected Mr. Stryker--by no means; she was very capable of managing two affairs of the kind at the same moment. All the remarks she addressed particularly to Mr. Wyllys, were sensible and lady-like; those she made to Mr. Stryker, were clever, worldly, and piquant; while the general tone of her conversation was always a well-bred medley of much fashionable levity, with some good sense and propriety. Mr. Stryker scarcely knew whether to be pleased, or to regret that he was obliged to ride at her side. He had lately become particularly anxious to advance in the good graces of Miss Elinor Wyllys, for two reasons; he had lost money, and was very desirous of appropriating some of Elinor's to his own use; and he had also felt himself to be in imminent danger of falling in love with Mrs. Creighton, and he wished to put it out of his own power to offer himself to her in a moment of weakness. Much as he admired the beauty, the wit, and the worldly spirit of the pretty widow, he was half-afraid of her; he judged her by himself; he knew that she was artful, and he knew that she was poor; for her late husband, Mr. Creighton, during a short married life, had run through all his wife's property, as well as his own, and his widow was now entirely dependent upon her brother.