"I proposed that we let out a reef or two. She agreed, and we broke into a baby canter. I kept hitting up the pace a little. Her horse caught the idea, and began to quicken. She bumped about a bit, but I saw she would know how to stay on, even if she moved faster than she ever had before. Just as we got up a fairly decent speed, one of those little _crack-a-cracks_ of motor-cycles came bursting out of a driveway, and both our horses shied and threatened to bolt. "It was nothing, you know; they were over it in a jiffy, and she kept her seat all right, and showed she was game. But it stirred both horses to take the rest of that stretch at as pretty a gallop as you ’d care to see; and when I saw the girl was all right, I shouted, ’Come on!’ and let them have it. I tell you, she forgot the riding academy and Professor Miller, and rode for fair. It was jolly good fun, and she enjoyed it, too." Peter laughed reminiscently. Jane remarked that she had noticed Olive’s masses of black hair were not in quite such trim shape when she came home from that ride as upon setting forth; and Peter admitted that upon that joyous gallop she had dropped not only her whip, but most of her hairpins, of which latter articles he had been able to recover for her only a few. "That’s all the girl needs," he observed, sagely. "Just shake out a few of her hairpins each time you ’re with her, and she ’ll learn how to be good friends with you." "I don’t have much chance to shake out her hairpins," Jane objected. "You will. You’re to go next time--some day when her brother Forrest is away, and I can ride his horse and you the one I had. I told her a pitiful tale of how you loved to ride, how well you could do it, and----" "Peter!" "Oh, I didn’t whine--just let her know I was n’t the only horseman in the family. She ’ll ask you--see if she doesn’t; if she doesn’t I won’t go my self." Olive did not ask Jane, however, and after one more ride with her, Peter suddenly became too busy to accept her invitations. Olive went off by herself one day, suffered a fall and a sprained shoulder, and was thereby initiated at last into Jane’s friendship. "My sister sent me over," said Murray Townsend, one June evening, to Jane, who, hemming a tiny ruffle, sat in the western sunlight upon the little back porch, where the family now spent their evenings, enjoying the first blossomings of the small garden. "She’s been fretting all day with that shoulder of hers she hurt last week, and vows she can’t get through the evening with me. The others are all away--as usual. Won’t you do us the favour of coming over?" "Was it really her suggestion--or yours?" Jane challenged him, for it was not the first time he had made the attempt, upon one excuse or or another, to get her across the street.