adness that made Gray Eagle skip in
sympathetic deviation from his usual long stride.

It was during one of these upstandings, when his head was brought above
its customary level, that Friedrich saw a girl running away from the
carriage-road down the lane that led to the sheep-farm. The sunshine
burned on her brilliant head, and Gray Eagle found his glad career
brought to a sudden close, and his amusement abruptly reduced to the
occupation of nibbling the stem of the young tree to which he was tied.
He watched his rider's long legs vault over the gate, and pondered
wisely on the similarity of interests of his two masters, for he, too,
now descried a flash of color in the distance.

Sydney's race ended beneath a huge oak, against which she leaned,
breathless and laughing, and faced her pursuer, who was close upon her.
The musical ring of his rowelled spurs ceased as he grasped her hands.

"_Unartiges Maedchen!_ Do you intend never to let me see you again? Tell
me what you mean by it."

Not a word said Sydney--only laughed at him provokingly.

"I am of a mind to punish you," he cried, drawing her towards him, and
leaning over her. He looked determined, and Sydney surrendered her
silence with dignified haste.

"No, no, don't," she said, in reply to his gesture rather than his
words. "I'll tell you anything. What do you want to know?"

"First, wherefore you were r-running down here."

"To escape from you."

"Tr-ruly?"

He dropped her hands and looked cut to the heart; so hurt that Sydney
hastened to apply ointment to the wound.

"But I was walking on the carriage-road to meet you."

"You were?" Friedrich's gloomy face was alive again. "Then why did you
r-run?"

"I don't know. For the same reason a kitten won't come when she's
called, I suppose."

"Even though she wants to?"

"Who knows what a kitten wants?"

"It would give me the gr-reatest of pleasure, Miss Car-roll, to shake
you!"

"I don't doubt it."

"It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to
comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I
whose horse you heard?"

"Of course I knew it was you."

"Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was
on the r-road?"

The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be
sentimental.

"Not at all," she said. "There was other evidence. Who else could sing
like you, 'Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie'?"

Her mimicry of his pr