“’Twas before they started,” returned Minerva with a Gallic shrug that accorded ill with her most un-Gallic stiffness. “Miss Carrington, Miss Helen has that horse you got for her, the black one, but Mr. Lanbury wanted to ride Master--Mr. Kit’s own, and Mr. Kit wouldn’t let him. You and I know he won’t let any man set astride that horse whose character and hand on the bridle isn’t known to him, but Mr. Lanbury didn’t know it, and he took personal offence at getting refused. Miss Helen lifted her eyebrows at him to signify: ‛What could you expect of a young man who wanted to ride with her himself?’ and Mr. Lanbury lifted his back at her to mean: ‛Is that what’s the matter?’ He looked as pleased as every man does when he’s carried off the girl the other chap wanted. It was pictured in our illustrated lectures in connection with Sabines. So Mr. Lanbury’s been given to understand that Mr. Kit’s gnashing his teeth, when the real truth about his teeth is that he wouldn’t bite.” Minerva looked outraged by this perversion of facts affecting the dignity of the Carringtons. Miss Carrington regarded her with amusement, realizing that Minerva should not be allowed so much as implied comment upon her guest, but finding rebuke difficult when Minerva had for so long ably seconded her own efforts. “Well, Minerva, I am bound to acknowledge that I see no symptoms of Kit’s estimating his own folly properly,” Miss Carrington said instead. “But I am disturbed. I believe I’d enjoy a call from that amusing Berkley child. Will you step around to Merton’s and telephone Mrs. Berkley; ask her if little Anne may come to see me? But before you go, get me into my kimono and make me comfortable on the couch.” Minerva did as she was bidden and departed for the drug store to ask to borrow little Anne. She returned with the message that little Anne would shortly appear, and, indeed she came sooner than could have been expected, because she had already been made ready for a call in Latham Street. “Be careful, Anne, not to say the smallest word to Miss Carrington of Miss Dallas’s unhappy morning here. Remember, no one wants that sort of thing repeated,” warned Mrs. Berkley, smoothing the child’s bobbed hair before putting on her hat, merely for the pleasure of stroking her head. “Oh, Mother, as though I would when she was crying about Kit!” cried little Anne, reproachfully; and Mrs. Berkley felt helplessly, as she so often did, that her younger daughter was aware of and equal to the situation. Minerva, on the watch for little Anne, met her and took her up to Miss Carrington’s sitting room. “Oh, I’m very sorry! I didn’t know you invited me because you were sick,” said little Anne, her solicitude banishing her shyness as she entered and saw Miss Carrington on the couch. “I am not ill, my dear; only not equal to playing my part. Do you understand that?” Miss Carrington waited for little Anne’s reply.