At an hour in the afternoon when the girls of her sort would all be wearing light frocks and ribbons, Shirley was dressed like the girls in the office he had just left. With a difference--which Peter’s eyes also discerned, although he could not have told just where the difference lay. Shirley’s white blouse, her blue serge skirt, her sailor hat, her trim shoes, all bore about them the stamp of quality, indefinable, yet not to be denied. As for her face, Peter thought he had never seen it so alight with life. The smile she had flashed at him was brilliant. He was glad he had caught the car. It was a decided enlivenment of the long ride, monotonous with daily repetition, just to stand beside the trim, swaying figure, and occasionally exchange a word with its possessor. Besides, he was feeling not a little curiosity as to the errand which had taken her to a place where hung the sign of a well-known commercial college. "It is a hot day, isn’t it?" observed Shirley, when he had handed her off the car, and they were walking up Gay Street toward Worthington Square. "Just the day to get into the country. I ’d like a gallop over about ten miles of good roads--just to feel the wind in my face." "It would be great, would n’t it?" agreed Peter. She looked up at him. "You and Olive don’t ride as much as you used to." "She has n’t seemed to care for it for the last year or so." "Hasn’t she asked you to ride Grayback whenever you wanted?" "She ’s been very kind about offering him. But I don’t like to go over and order him out myself." "He ’s pining for exercise. So is Pretty Polly, though I had one short canter on her before breakfast. You ’ve never been out with me on horseback. Perhaps you don’t know I can ride." "I have my eyesight. And as for inviting you to go with me--how can I, when you have the horses? If you ’re asking me to go with you--there ’s nothing on earth I ’d rather do just now." "I believe that," thought Shirley, as she ran into the house to change her clothes. "If ever a man looked as if he ’d like to drop his cares and get off on a horse’s back, Peter does to-day." In a few minutes she was crossing the lawn, in her riding habit, crop in hand. Peter met her, himself in riding trim. His face showed his pleasure in the prospect, as he put her up and swung into his own saddle. "’If wishes were horses,’" he quoted, as they turned toward the Northboro road. "And sometimes they are. An hour ago I was looking out of the office window at the factory, and wishing for this very sort of thing. I ought to see Grandfather Bell. Do you mind if we go that way?" "I ’m fond of that way. It will give us a good gallop down the old turnpike, and a cool walk through the woods to freshen the horses."