The sidewalk came to an end presently, together with the village street, just opposite the big house of the Honorable Stephen Jarvis. Jimmy stopped, as he always did, to look in through the convolutions of a highly ornamental fence at the cast-iron deer which guarded the walk on either side, and at the mysterious blue glass balls mounted on pedestals, which glistened brightly in a passing gleam of sunshine. There were other things of interest in the yard of the big house: groups of yellow daffodils, nodding gaily in the wind, red, white, and purple hyacinths behind the borders of blue-starred periwinkle, and shrubs with clouds of pink and yellow blossoms. In the summer there would be red geraniums and flaming cannas and pampas grass in tall fleecy pyramids. Jimmy wondered what it would be like to walk up the long smooth gravel path and open the tall front door. What splendors might be hid behind the lace curtains looped away from the shining windows; books, maybe, with pictures; a real piano with ivory keys, and chairs and sofas of red velvet. “S’pos’n,” said Jimmy to his sociable little self, “jus’ s’pos’n me an’ Barb’ra lived there; an’ I should walk right in an’ find Barb’ra all dressed in a pink satin dress with a trail an’ maybe a diamon’ crown. She’d look lovely in a diamon’ crown, Barb’ra would.” His attention was diverted at the moment by the sight of a smart sidebar buggy, drawn by a spirited bay horse, which a groom was driving around the house from the stable at the rear. The man pulled up sharply at the side entrance, where the bay horse pawed the gravel impatiently. Jimmy observed with interest that the horse’s tail was cropped short and bobbed about excitedly. He was imagining himself as coming out of the house and climbing into the shining buggy, and taking the reins in his own hands, and—— He waited breathlessly, his eyes glued to an opening in the fence, while the tall spare figure of a man wearing a gray overcoat and a gray felt hat emerged from the house. Jimmy recognized the man at once. He was the Honorable Stephen Jarvis. Few persons in Barford ever spoke of him in any other way. “The Honorable” seemed as much a part of his name as Jarvis. Jimmy, for one, thought it was. “That’s me!” said Jimmy. “Now I’m climbin’ in; now I’ve took the lines! Now I’ve got the whip! And now——” The vehicle dashed out of the open gate, whirred past with a spatter of half-frozen mud, and disappeared around a bend of the road where pollarded willows grew. “My! I’m goin’ fast!” said Jimmy aloud. “But I ain’t afraid; no, sir! I guess Barb’ra’ll be some s’prised when she sees me drivin’ in! I’ll say, ‘Come on an’ take a ride with me, Barb’ra’; an’ Barb’ra, she’ll say, ‘Why, Jimmy Preston! ain’t you ’fraid that short-tailed horse’ll run away?’ An’ I’ll laugh an’ say, ‘Don’t you see I’m drivin’?’”