A trailing blackberry vine, running like a crimson vein close to the earth, caught my foot, and I stooped for a minute. When I looked up she was standing clear against the reflected light of the sunrise, where a low hill rose above the stretches of broomsedge. Her sorrel mare was beside her, licking contentedly at a bright branch of sassafras; and I saw that she had evidently dismounted but the moment before. As I approached, she fastened her riding skirt above her high boots, and kneeling down on the dusty roadside, lifted the mare's foot and examined it with searching and anxious eyes. Her three-cornered riding hat had slipped to her shoulders, where it was held by a broad black band of elastic, and I saw her charming head, with its wreath of plaits, defined against the golden cloud that hung above the thin stretch of pines. At my back the full sunrise broke, and when she turned toward me, her gaze was dazzled for a moment by the flood of light. "Let me have a look," I said, as I reached her, "is the mare hurt?" "She went lame a few minutes ago. There's a stone in her foot, but I can't get it out." "Perhaps I can." Rising from her knees, she yielded me her place, and then stood looking down on me while I removed the stone. "She'll still limp, I fear, it was a bad one," I said as I finished. Without replying, she turned from me and ran a few steps along the road, calling, "Come, Dolly," in a caressing voice. The mare followed with difficulty, flinching as she put her sore foot to the ground. "See how it hurts her," she said, coming back to me. "I'll have to lead her slowly--there's no other way." "Why not ride at a walk?" She shook her head. "My feet are better than a lame horse. It's not more than two miles anyway." "And you danced all night?" I hung the reins over my arm and we turned together, facing the sunrise. "Yes, but the way to rest is to run out-of-doors. Are you often up with the dawn, too?" "No, but I couldn't sleep. The music got into my head." "Into mine also. But I often take a canter at sunrise. It is my hour." "And this is your road?" "Not always. I go different ways. This one I call the road-to-what-might-have-been because it turns off just as it reaches a glorious view." "Then don't let's travel it. I'd rather go with you on the road-to-what-is-to-be." She looked at me steadily for a minute with arching brows. "I wonder why they say of you that you have no social amenities?" she observed mockingly. "I haven't. That isn't an amenity, it is a fact. To save my life I couldn't find a blessed thing to say last night to the little lady in pink tarlatan whose dress I tore." "Poor Bessy!" she laughed softly, "she vows she'll never waltz with you again." "She's perfectly safe to vow it." "Oh, yes, I remember, and I hope you won't dance any more. Do you know, I like you better out-of-doors." "Out-of-doors?"