ant fancies and, while trying to
recover some dropped thread of discourse, openly sighed--haunted by
visions of the phoebe bird's nest found under the old bridge by the mill
dam, or of the long-forgotten hazel eyes of some twelve-year-old
sweetheart. A rebellious day--and a sentimental! [See Lord Tennyson, and
the poets, _passim_.] The apple trees must be in full bloom....

Well then, confound it, why had Susan gone to a public lecture on
Masefield? Or had she merely mentioned at lunch that there was a public
lecture on Masefield? Oh, damn it! One can't stay indoors on such a day!

Susan and I kept our saddle horses at the local riding academy, where
they were well cared for and exercised on the many days when we couldn't
or did not wish to take them out. As the academy was convenient and had
good locker rooms and showers, we always preferred changing there
instead of dressing at home and having the horses sent round. Riding is
not one of my passions, and oddly enough is not one of Susan's. That
intense sympathy which unites some men and women to horses, and others
to dogs or cats, is either born in one or it is not. Susan felt it very
strongly for both dogs and cats, and if I have failed to mention Tumps
and Togo, that is a lack in myself, not in her. I don't dislike dogs or
cats or, for that matter, well-broken horses, but--though I lose your
last shreds of sympathy--they all, in comparison with other interests,
leave me more than usual calm. Of Tumps and Togo, nevertheless,
something must yet be said, though too late for their place in Susan's
heart; or indeed, for their own deserving. But they are already an
intrusion here.

For Alma, her dainty little single footer, Susan's feeling was rather
admiration than love. Just as there are poets whose songs we praise, but
whose genius does not seem to knit itself into the very fabric of our
being, so it was with Alma and Susan. She said and thought nothing but
good of Alma, yet never felt lonely away from her--the infallible test.
As for Jessica, my own modest nag, I fear she was very little more to me
than an agreeably paced inducement to exercise, and I fear I was little
more to her than a possible source of lump sugar and a not-too-fretful
hand on the bridle reins. To-day, however, I needed her as a more poetic
motor; failing Susan's companionship, I wanted to be carried far out
into country byways apart from merely mechanical motors or--ditto--men.

Jessica, well up