"Well, I'll lead up your horse for you anyhow," and he went out before she could make up her mind to refuse him, and brought the sorrel filly alongside a tree-stump left standing in front of the school-house for a horse-block. The rest had by this time either mounted and gone, or were walking away afoot. Rachel felt a secret admiration for his audacity as she sprang into her saddle, while Tom held her bridle and adjusted the stirrup to her foot. "What have I done, Rachel?" "You know, well enough." Her voice was low and tremulous. She had dismissed other favorites, but never before had she found in herself so much reluctance. "Do you mean my gambling with Dave Sovine?" said Tom, driving, as usual, point-blank at the very center of things. "Yes." "Who told you?" He still held on to her bridle-rein with his left hand,--somewhat as a highwayman does in romances. "Oh! I guess everybody knows. Ike heard it yesterday, from George Lockwood or somebody." "It was Lockwood got me into it," said Tom, shutting his teeth hard. "If you'd let me go home with you, I could explain things a little." But those who are enervated by the balmy climate of flattery naturally dread a stiff breeze of ridicule. Rachel Albaugh did not like to bear any share of the odium that must come on Tom when his recklessness, and, above all, his bad luck, should become known. She drew the rein that Tom held, until he felt obliged to let it go, and said "No." "I have got what I needed," said Tom, making the best of his defeat. "What?" asked Rachel. "Oh! one mitten isn't of any use alone; you've given me a pair of them." Tom felt now the exhilaration of desperation. He gayly mounted his horse, and bade Rachel a cheerful good-bye as he galloped past her; then, when he had overtaken a group of those ahead of Rachel, he reined up and turned in the saddle, leaning his left hand on the croup, while he joked and bantered with one and another. Then he put his horse into a gallop again. When he was well out of hearing, Henry Miller, who was one of the party, remarked to his companions that he didn't know what was up, but it seemed to him as though Tom Grayson had got something that looked like a mitten without any thumb. "That's one more that Rache's shed," he remarked. "But when she gets a chance to shed me she'll know it." As Tom rode onward toward the village his spirits sank again, and he let his horse break down into an easy trot and then into a slow walk.