Catching sight of the tall, slight, girlish figure in plain blue serge gown and close-fitting serge jacket, he dropped in surprise the great horse-sponge and the bucket with which he was laden, and uttered a prolonged whistle of astonishment. “Miss Cranstoun, as I’m alive!” he exclaimed. “Why, who’d ha’ thought of seeing you so early, miss?” “I have to go into Grayling as soon as possible, and I want you to lend me a horse,” she explained. “I will bring it back to your stables very shortly, and will take great care of it. I could not get one at home, as every one was asleep when I left.” The man’s eyes twinkled. Not being a householder, and coming as he did from London, the hostler had none of the local dread of Sir Philip Cranstoun’s displeasure. “How would you like to borrow our young gentleman’s Black Bess, that you admired so much, for a little spin?” he suggested. “She takes a bit of riding, but I lay you’ll manage her.” The offer was one after Stella’s own heart, and after a short time spent in fitting upon Black Bess’ back the unaccustomed side-saddle, Stella sprang lightly into her seat, and stroking the mare’s glossy black neck, turned her head toward Grayling and started her off in a gallop. At first the mare, who had never before been ridden by a lady, was sorely puzzled by the flapping of Stella’s gown, and curved her long neck every now and then in a vain attempt to bite at her rider’s skirts. Gradually, however, getting used to this phenomenon, and realizing the difference between Stella’s weight and Hilary’s, she put her head down and made one determined effort to run away with her unusual burden. Baffled in this attempt, she settled down to the inevitable, and carried Stella as the girl had never been carried before, skimming over the ground in a way which would have left even fleet-footed Zephyr far behind. Grayling, at seven o’clock, was still chiefly asleep, but a red-cheeked Grayling boy, who was spinning a top in the principal thoroughfare, desisted from his occupation in order to stare at Stella, and to inform her, in a drawling Surrey dialect, of the whereabouts of Dr. Ernest Netherbridge’s house. The little doctor was no longer a bachelor. A knowledge of the fact that many steady-going provincial patients preferred their doctors married, together with the extreme dulness of having “no one to come home to,” had induced him some few years before to relinquish his vague ideals of a beautiful and attractive helpmeet, and to satisfy his wish for companionship and a more extensive income in the person of a spinster of uncertain age who was popularly supposed in Grayling to have been “setting her cap at the doctor” for over fifteen years. And this person it was, in brown woollen and a large white apron, who opened the door on lovely Stella Cranstoun and Black Bess, and waspishly demanded to know her business with the doctor. CHAPTER XII. FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.