laughed, but her eyes prayed.

"Then, maybe," she said, "if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be here
now."

"I'd like to think that," I said; "but there must have been lots of
others who prayed. I should like nothing better than a Carnegie hero
medal, with the attached pension, but the jury require proofs."

"It's funny," she said, "to think of you kneeling on the icy floor and
praying for me."

"For your _recovery_!" I corrected her.

"I think it would have been nicer if you had prayed for me. Didn't
you--even a little?"

"If I had realized that I could be seven years older than you and still
belong to the same generation, my prayers would have been altogether
different, and there would have been more of them."

"Where do you think _this_ road goes?"

She turned into it without waiting for an answer, and urged her pony
into a gentle amble.

I caught up with her and said: "I know this trail. It will take us
straight to the Whitney drive. Then we can go right up over the hill
and come out by Sand River."

"It's fun," she said, "to find somebody that likes riding. Everybody's
mad about golf. John rides whenever I ask him, but it's cruel to
separate him from the new mid-iron that Jimmie made for him. And he
won't let me ride alone."

Poor John Fulton showed little worldly wisdom in making that
prohibition.

"I'd rather ride than eat," I said. "Will you ride again tomorrow?"

She quoted the Aiken story of the lonely bachelor in the
boarding-house. He is called to the telephone, hears a hospitable
voice that says, "Will you come to lunch tomorrow at one-thirty?" and
answers promptly, "You _bet_ I will! . . . Who is it?"

Just before you reach the Whitney drive there is a right angle turn
from the trail which we were following; it back-tracks a little, errs
and strays through some fine jasmine "bowers," and comes out at the old
race track.

"It's early," I said; "let's go this way."

She wheeled her pony instantly.

"Do you always do what you're told?"

She bowed her head very humbly, and meekly, through a mischievous
mouth, said: "Yes, sir!" And added: "Except when awfully long."

"What do you mean by that?"

"That the most fun is beginning something, and then beginning something
else before you get all tired out and tangled up. Never say no until
you are sure that what's been proposed isn't any good. _Then_ back
out!"

"Don't you ever say no?"

"I 'spect I was very badly brough