to it, offered no objections to the plan, and we were
soon trotting briskly along the aerial Ridge Road, from which we at
length descended to the dark eastern flank of Mount Carmel. It would
mean a long pull to go right round the mountain by the steep back road,
and I had at first no thought of attempting it; but the swift
remembrance of a vast cherry orchard bordering that road made me wonder
whether its blossoms had yet fallen. When I determined finally to push
on, poor Jessica's earlier fire had cooled; we climbed the rough back
road as a slug moves; the cherry orchard proved disappointing; and the
sun was barely two hours from the hills when we crossed the divide and
turned south down a grass-grown wood road that I had never before
traveled. I hoped, and no doubt Jessica hoped, it might prove a shorter
cut home.

What it did prove was so fresh an enchantment of young leaf and
flashing wing, that I soon ceased to care where it led or how late I
might be for dinner. Then a sharp dip in the road brought a new vision
of delight; dogwood--cloudy masses of pink dogwood, the largest,
deepest-tinted trees of it I had ever seen! It caught at my throat; and
I reined in Jessica, whose aesthetic sense was less developed, and
stared. But presently the spell was broken. An unseen horse squealed,
evidently from behind a great lilac thicket in an old field at the left,
and Jessica squealed back, instantly alert and restive. The sharp
whinnying was repeated, and Jessica's dancing excitement grew intense;
then there was a scuffling commotion back of the lilacs and to my final
astonishment Susan's little mare, Alma, having broken her headstall and
wrenched herself free of bit and bridle, came trotting amicably forth to
join her old friends--which she could easily do, as the ancient cattle
bars at the field-gate had long since rotted away.

It was unmistakably dainty Alma with her white forehead star--but where
was her mistress? A finger of ice drew slowly along my spine as I urged
Jessica into the field and round the lilac thicket. Alma meekly followed
us, softly breathing encouragement through pink nostrils, and my alarm
quieted when I found nothing more dreadful than the broken bridle still
dangling from the branch of a dead cedar. It was plain that Susan had
tied Alma there to explore on foot through the higher fields; it was
plain, too, that she must have preferred to ride out here alone, and had
been at some pains to conceal he