"Choose?" the other shrugged. "Where am I to find him? Not in this part of the world, evidently. You see I've been out several years, my dear. And Mother's far too well-bred to take me about husband hunting, even if she were able to afford it--No, no, I shall simply subside gracefully into old maidhood, as so many of us do nowadays. Haven't you noticed the numbers of old maids about here--charming, cultivated women who have waited too long for a possible partner to come and discover them? Filling their lives with Bridge and charity and committee work! Useful, I suppose, and contented enough, but--It isn't what one dreams of! Mere _pis aller_.... And I don't see how the ballot's going to help, do you?" "Except by changing the fashion in female education," mused Joan. "Meanwhile we've just got to help ourselves. Pull ourselves up by our own boot-straps." "And we haven't even got the boot-straps!" laughed the other, ruefully.... This was not the last of their rides together. The unexpected understanding of this girl, whose lot in life Joan had long secretly envied, broke down the artificial barriers between them, and paved the way for a real and lasting friendship. Between them they settled many problems of the universe, while Dobbin and Pegasus respectively trotted and singlefooted about the parks or along a road where the Ohio swept, swollen with the winter's snows, almost on a level with them, overlooked by splendid cliffs where the city's rich have been wise enough to build homes that would do credit to the château country of France. Sometimes Emily took her into one of these houses for a cup of tea, occasions which filled Effie May with a candid gratification; for hitherto the Carmichael circle had remained impregnable to her siege. "It certainly was a good idea of yours, getting the child that horse!" she commented to her husband. "There's something genteel about a riding-horse--more so than a limousine, though I'm sure I can't see why. Heaven knows it's cheaper! But even that old plug the Carmichael girl rides has a kind of air about it." "Horses," replied the Major sententiously, "are the only aristocrats left in the modern world." Effie May presently suggested to Archie that he purchase himself a horse and try riding, since he was so fond of exercise. But Archie put the tempting idea away from him. What time had he for the diversions of the idle? Business before pleasure! He had recently, and for reasons that were a little vague in his own mind, decided to become rich. Joan was so preoccupied with her new friendship that she had rather neglected the boxing matches of late, which presently languished. The Major missed the stimulating presence of a young feminine audience. So that Archie spent no more glorious half-hours over a tea-table.