“Oh, it’s perfectly lovely to walk,” said Cherry, and as Ethel said she felt able, walk we did. We had gone perhaps two-thirds of the way, looking at every turn for a wrecked cart and a broken legged horse, when we heard the rattle of wheels and saw the horse coming back after us, guided by Pat, himself. “Oh, ’tis the devil’s own pity, sure it is,” said he when he saw us. “Sure, he had the blind staggers. Why didn’t ye bleed him?” said he. “How could I bleed him when he ran away?” “Oh, well, that’s arl he needed,” said Pat. “He come runnin’ in the door yaard, an’ me woman says, ‘they’re kilt,’ says she. And I whips out me knife an’ cuts his mout’, an’ he’s arl right. Ye’d oughter have bled him. Ah, it’s a hell of a bad job that it happened ye. Were ye hurrted?” We assured him that it was all right, and would have continued on foot, but he said the horse had needed bleeding and that she was as fresh as a colt now, and he helped the ladies in, gave me the reins, slapped the animal’s flanks as before, with the same command as to his destination, and we drove home in triumph, leaving him to walk. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XX A MUSICAL TRAMP. WE wanted Cherry to play, but we did not feel that we ought to ask her to do it; she would be tired, after her journey, and piano playing to her was no novelty. But when, after dinner, while passing through the sitting room, on our way to the veranda she ran a harmony enticing hand over the keys as she walked by the piano, I could not help saying, “Don’t you feel like following that up with the other hand?” She laughed, and sitting down at the piano she said, “Why, certainly. What shall it be?” “Oh, we leave that to you,” said Ethel. “Play what you like and you’ll play what we like.” “Is Grieg getting old fashioned?” I asked. “I never inquired,” said Cherry. “I don’t believe in fashions in arts. I liked Grieg, and Schumann, and Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and Wagner, and Johann Strauss when I was a child, and so I’ll always like them. And Grieg is always fresh. What shall I play—‘Anitra’s Dance’?” “Yes, do,” said Ethel. “I never hear that without thinking of Seidl and Brighton Beach and the throngs of doting Brooklyn women who didn’t go to hear the music, but to see Seidl. But it was beautiful music—when the roar of the surf didn’t drown it.”