“Why, who in the neighborhood does not?” she said, settling herself in the saddle. “Not to know you would be to argue one’s self very much unknown in this neighborhood. Now give me the lamb. Thank you so much. Come, Laurin. Good-by, Miss Herrick.” She placed the lamb carefully against her side, whistled to the hound, and started off at a round trot. Her figure, in its trim Quorn-cloth habit, came into bold relief against the vivid sky. He watched admiringly the long supple waist as it swayed to the motion of the horse, the bold graceful sweep of the shoulders, and high carriage of the small head. He had read so much concerning the gathers and gilt braid of the Virginian horsewoman that it struck him as something entirely strange, the fact that Miss Mary Erroll should wear a neat, well-cut habit, and a chimney-pot hat. He also recalled that her saddle was all that it should be, and that instead of the gold-and-ivory-handled cutting whip which he had been led to expect, she carried a light but sturdy crop. “By Jove! how she rides!” he said to himself. “Don’t I ride as well?” came the soft monotone of Virginia at his ear. He answered her, still with his eyes on the vanishing figure of the girl in the Quorn-cloth habit. “You ride like an Arab,” he said. “She rides like--like--like an Englishwoman.” “You don’t think I ride as well,” said Virginia, in an indescribable voice, turning away. She was filled with an unreasoning, unchristian, wholly uncivilized desire to mount Bonnibel, overtake, and spatter Miss Mary Erroll with as much mud as possible. Suddenly she turned and came back to Roden. “I--I--I s’pose you think a gyrl oughtn’ to ride straddle?” she said, with an unusual hint of timidity in her rich tones. “Oh, I don’t know that there’s any harm in it,” he said, carelessly. Again she stood away from him. A feeling of utterly unreasonable anger and rebellion was swelling in her heart and straining her throat. Was it against Miss Mary Erroll or against Roden? She could not herself have told. One fact was entirely apparent to her: he did not deem what she did or did not do things worthy his consideration. “I bet she couldn’t ride Bonnibel!” she said, passionately, between her locked teeth, as she went blindly on through the furze and briers. “I bet she couldn’t ride Bonnibel--straddle or no straddle!” It was not until three days later that she found out from her father the fact of Roden’s having been to call (nominally) upon the lamb of Miss Mary Erroll. “The beauty of the question air,” ended that modern Solomon, as he filled his white clay pipe--“The beauty of the question air, that thar gyrl cert’n’y is goin’ to lead that young fellar a darnce. They say she’s got it down ter a fine p’int.” “What?” said Virginia, curtly.