Olive found immense amusement in talking to Willette, who expressed herself with the utmost freedom upon all subjects in language which would have done credit to a nigger. The child, on the other hand, had a supreme contempt for Olive’s abilities and attainments, which seemed ludicrously deficient, but felt a kindly patronising sort of regard for her, and liked to look at her pretty face and touch her smooth round cheeks. The pair were therefore often together, and Willette undertook to teach her friend to ride, provided she would get some sensible clothes and ride in the only way that Willette imagined it possible for a two-legged human being to bestride a quadruped. Olive therefore made herself a bewitching riding-habit with Turkish trousers, and rode a high-peaked Mexican saddle, out of which even a sack of meal could not tumble if it tried. As soon as Olive began to feel confidence in herself and her horse, she enjoyed the riding immensely. She claimed the refusal of a horse on every possible opportunity when one could be spared from the farm work. Ezra, delighted to see her so pleased with a healthy exercise, encouraged her to go cattle-hunting with Willette, and enjoyed the spirited reports which she used to bring home from these exhilarating expeditions. “I do wish I had a pony of my very own which I could take out whenever I wanted a ride, and which would be always there for me,” said Olive one day to Ezra after she had been riding by herself on Rebel. Ezra was hoeing up the newly sprouted sweet-corn, and the horses were not at work on the land. In his inmost heart he re-echoed the wish, and would at that moment have given anything to be an individualist and be able to say: “Darling, I’ll buy you a pony with the first load of corn I sell.” He looked at his pretty wife’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and thought with a groan that he was tied by his principles and prevented by them and the public opinion of the Community from giving his wife this enjoyment. It was the first time that his heart had come into conflict with the perfect theories of Perfection City, and he was amazed and disturbed to find how very much he was vexed by them. Fortunately Olive dismissed the idea of a pony of her own as an unattainable bliss, and contented herself with chance rides on Rebel and Queen Katherine, the two horses which inhabited Ezra’s stable and were generally used by him on his side of the community-land.