sing to me, and I ventured still more
grandly: "Pleasant day, Piney."

Then he found his voice, "Ma-ma--come quick!" he shrieked. "Davy
Malcolm's runnin' away with a lady!"

This announcement brought Mrs. Savercool from the house, and in a few
bounds she was before us, checking our further advance with a
wide-spread apron.

"Dav-id Malcolm," she cried, "the idea of you lettin' such a little 'un
as her set on such a dangerous animal. Stop! Get down, I say, both on
you!"

I could not break through that apron, and my heart sank, for, instead
of riding grandly home and presenting Penelope to my parents with a
proper speech, we were threatened with an ignominious journey in the
Savercool buggy. With Mrs. Savercool's charge that we were foolish
children, and that she could never forgive herself if she did not stop
our wild career at once, years dropped from my age and inches from my
stature, and I was at the point of obeying her meekly. But Nathan took
offence at her tone. He bolted. Just what happened I could not see,
for I had to take myself to his mane again, and he held his terrific
pace until we reached the pike, and along the pike to the fork where
the road branched off to our farm. When he paused here it was to
consider whether he would go on toward Malcolmville or into the quiet,
shaded lane. He must have recalled the hitching-rail, the sun, and the
flies, and preferred to risk even a road that he did not know, for on
he went--quietly.

We crossed the little knoll and the house came into view. The cry of
exultation which rose to my lips was checked when I saw, stretching
from the gate down the road, a long line of vehicles. The first held
the hitching-post. The others took to the fence--buggies, buckboards,
phaetons, single horses, and teams, an ominous picture. Not since my
grandfather's funeral had I seen quite such a sight before our house,
and my heart sank. Could death have come in my absence? On second
thought I remembered how brief that absence had been, measured in
hours, and I sought another reason for the gathering. I began at the
last vehicle and carried my eye along the line, to find that I knew
them all. There was Doctor Pearl's buckboard, with his mustang eating
a fence post; Squire Crumple's gray mare in his narrow courting buggy;
old Mr. Smiley's ponderous black with his comfortable phaeton, speaking
the presence of Mr. Pound and Mrs. Pound, who used it as their own; the
Buckwal