Mary Hope's cheeks were hot but confusion could not break her Scotch spirit. "Want to borrow something?" Lance stood looking at her with much enjoyment. A girl in short skirts was fair game for any one's teasing, especially when she blushed as easily as did Mary Hope. "Want to borrow a horse that will rin away wi' you." "Lance, you devil, get out and leave the girl alone. I'm ashamed of you! Haven't you got any manners at all?--after all the willows and the good powder I've wasted on you! Get back to that pasture fence before I take a club to you for such acting!" Before Belle's wrath Lance retreated, and Mary Hope found the courage to wrinkle her nose at him when he glanced her way. "He rinned away to save himself a whupping," she commented, and made sure that he heard it, and hoped that he would realize that she spoke "Scotchy" just for his special benefit. "All right for you, Belle Lorrigan!" Lance called back, retaliating for Mary Hope's grimace by a kiss thrown brazenly in the expectation of seeing her face grow redder; which it did immediately. "Careful of that horse--he might rinned away again!" "That'll do for you, young man!" Whereupon Belle picked up a small stone and threw it with such accurate aim that Lance's hat went off. "Good thing for you that I haven't got a gun on me, or I'd dust your heels for you!" Then she turned to Mary Hope, who was listening with titillating horror to the painted Jezebel's unorthodox method of reproving her offspring. "Get right down, honey, and come in and rest. And don't mind Lance; he's an awful tease, especially when he likes a person. Tie your horse to the fence--or turn him in the corral, if he'll let you catch him again." "I--I don't believe I could stop. I--I only came by because I--my horse--" Mary Hope stammered and blushed so red that her freckles were invisible. After all, it was very hard to tell a lie, she discovered. "There's something I like about this horse," said Belle, running her plump white hand down the nose of Rab. "He's neighborly, anyway. He brought you here against your will, I can see that. And now he's here he sort of takes it for granted you'll be friendly and stop a while. Don't you think you ought to be as friendly as your horse, honey?" "I--I am friendly. I--I always wished I could come and see you. But mother--mother doesna visit much among the neighbors; she--she's always busy." "I don't visit much, myself," said Belle dryly. "But that ain't saying I can't be friendly. Come on in, and we'll have some lemonade." Sheer astonishment brought Mary Hope down from her horse. All her life she had taken it for granted that lemonade was sacred to the Fourth of July picnics, just as oranges grew for Christmas trees only. She followed Belle dumbly into the house, and once inside she remained dumb with awe at what seemed to her to be the highest pinnacle of grandeur.