Lloyd would be afraid to ride with such
horses," said Mrs. Zelotes, as they leaped aside in passing; then
she bowed and smiled with eager pleasure, and yet with perfect
self-respect. She felt herself every whit as good as Mrs. Norman
Lloyd, and her handsome Paisley shawl and velvet bonnet as genteel
as the other woman's sealskins and floating plumes. Mrs. Lloyd
loomed up like a vast figure of richness enveloped in her bulky
winter wraps; her face was superb with health and enjoyment and
good-humor. Her cheeks were a deep crimson in the cold wind; she
smiled radiantly all the time as if at life itself. She had no
thought of fear behind those prancing bays which seemed so frightful
to Mrs. Zelotes, used to the steadiest stable team a few times
during the year, and driven with a wary eye to railroad crossings
and a sense of one's mortality in the midst of life strong upon her.
Mrs. Norman Lloyd had never any doubt when her husband held the
lines. She would have smiled behind ostriches and zebras. To her
mind Norman Lloyd was, as it were, impregnable to all combinations
of alien strength or circumstances. When she bowed on passing the
Brewsters, she did not move her fixed smile until she caught sight
of Ellen. Then emotion broke through the even radiance of her face.
She moved her head with a flurry of nods; she waved her hand; she
even kissed it to her.

"Bow to Mis' Lloyd, Ellen," said her grandmother; and Ellen ducked
her head solemnly. She remembered what she had heard the night
before, and the sleigh swept by, Mrs. Lloyd's rosy face smiling back
over the black fringe of dancing tails. Eva had shot a swift glance
of utmost rancor at the Lloyds, then sat stiff and upright until
they passed.

"I wouldn't ask Ellen to bow to that woman," said she, fiercely,
between her teeth. "I hate the whole tribe."

No one heard her except Andrew, and he shook the lines over the
steady stable horse, and said, "G'lang!" hoarsely.

Mrs. Norman Lloyd, in the other sleigh, had turned to her husband
with somewhat timid and deprecating enthusiasm. "Ain't she a sweet
little girl?" said she.

"What little girl?" Lloyd asked, abstractedly. He had not looked at
the Brewsters at all.

"That little Ellen Brewster who ran away and was gone most three
days a little while ago. She was in that sleigh we just passed. She
is just the sweetest child I ever laid eyes on," and Norman Lloyd
smiled vaguely and coldly, and cast a glance over his sable