Two or three days went by, and Jerry had apparently done nothing about the horse. Miss Stretton's dearest wish was to hire an animal on which she might take her daily rides with credit to herself and less jarring of her bones. The great beast now at her service resembled some creature in process of transformation to some other species, so shambling, so long-mouthed, so ashamed of his own appearance did he seem. But, rendered desperate by Jerry's procrastination, she mounted Prince one morning and turned toward the village. "You have shaken me to pieces--you, Prince!" she said reproachfully as she stopped him in front of the store. Stoneyton was perhaps the very smallest village ever dignified by the name. There was a church, the store, and two neighboring houses, one beside the store and one just across the narrow street. Two swaying elms almost covered this space with their low-hanging branches, and a broken wagon shaft lying in the way made it difficult for a vehicle to turn there. A cart and horse now stood in the road, its driver absent. There was, for a rarity, no one on the stoop; all was unusually still; and Miss Stretton, waiting impatiently until the driver should come out and start off, leaving the road again a thoroughfare, sat still on her tall steed, and let her eyes roam dreamily around on the well-known but ever-pleasing landscape. The customer came out, and with her came young Mr. Johnson, who stowed away her parcels, helped her into the wagon, and handed her the reins before he turned to the pretty girl with a tinge of color still dyeing his brown cheek. "Is--your uncle in?" asked Miss Stretton sweetly. He was very sorry, but his uncle had gone to Port Royal that morning to see a sick sister. Could he do anything for her? "Well," she said, hesitating, "I suppose you might do just as well, only--I had expected to talk with your uncle." Young Johnson looked puzzled but admiring. It was the admiration in his splendid dark eyes that embarrassed her. To the city girls who came up to the mountain every one of these little country stores, and every farm which boasted a son or two of some old, impoverished family, furnished an escort to dances and picnics, and the beau of a summer. Miss Stretton was not exempt from girlish weaknesses, and as the handsome countryman stood there waiting for her probable order for ribbons or candy or stationery, she wished that she could settle her little matter of business with some one else. But she took it like a douche at last, all at once. "Jerry told me that your uncle has a nice riding-horse, and I want one for a month or so. Would he hire it? Could I arrange the matter with you?" "Well, the horse is mine, in fact. Uncle made a present of it to me," explained Albert, kicking a little stone in the road.