inslow could decide whether to run or to stand her
ground, she saw the cyclist approaching--on foot.

"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our
new wheels."

And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered
herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss
Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her
youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the
ankles.

"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny
things; I don't see how you ever git on them."

"I don't," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever learn to start
off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, Mrs. Winslow?"

"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy
nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as
big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere,
sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think
he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's most
riding alone!"

"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with
ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any
more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard
on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further
leg over first, and cut a kind of figure eight with your legs, and turn
your wheel the way you don't want to go--all at once. While I'm trying
to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that wheel
only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. One of
my arms looks like a Persian ribbon."

Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins
would use her linament that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the
burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible."

"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with
more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she
noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands.

"Yes, ma'am," was all she said.

"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cozy you
looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be home evenings."

"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he
wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me.
There never was a boy had such willing little fe