a ride would be delightful, though he added,
grimly:

"I'm so lame and stiff already from yesterday's horseback exercise
that I feel older than Ephraim. I expect a 'hair of the same dog' is
the best cure, and wish now I had made time, back there in town, to
get used to a saddle. I never found it convenient, though, and poor
Nimrod missed his outings even more than I did, I fancy. It certainly
is a glorious day for a canter, as almost all our days are."

"It's nice, too, when the rains come. We do things indoors then
that we never do all the rest of the year. My mother plays and sings
half the time, 'cause then she can't go poking around all over the
ranch, like she does now. In the evenings the 'boys' all come in and
tell stories or do their best to amuse us. We were always happiest,
too, when Pedro came, and when my father was here he coaxed him
and he came often. Now--he'll never come again!" she finished, with
an irrepressible burst of grief, which she as quickly suppressed,
for she saw that it saddened her guest as well; and she had been
reared in the spirit of hospitality that makes the stranger glad
even at the cost of one's own impulses.

So she added, with a smile that seemed all the brighter because of the
tears still glistening on her long lashes:

"I'll bring you some books out here and you can rest in the hammock
while I run and have the horses saddled. Buster isn't as fast as
Nimrod, but he'll go now and then as if he were a colt. I hope this
will be one of his fast times, don't you? I love to ride fast!"
Ninian smiled rather grimly, answering:

"Just at present, from the state of my poor muscles, I fancy I'd
prefer a gait as slow as Buster's ordinary one. But if I stay the week
out, I mean to learn a thing or two about that fine beast of mine."

"A week or two! Why, you're to be here till after Christmas, anyway,
and that's a fortnight off. I wish--oh, I wish you would live here
always!"

From his delightful resting place in a hammock that was "stretched
just right," and which commanded one of the loveliest views in the
world, he looked afield and wished so too. Fond as he was of his own
active city life, this broad outlook appealed to him most strongly;
yet he shook off the longing that assailed him to pass his days in the
country and opened the book Jessica had brought. He was soon absorbed
in its pages and forgot the errand upon which the child had gone,
till, after a long time, as it proved, N