for boarding school.
As the riders resumed their homeward journey she smiled and said softly:

"How exactly like Beverly. Now will come confession and repentance and
shall I be able to keep a sober face?"

CHAPTER IV

DIVIDED WAYS

"Yes, I just forgot all about it, for of course I wasn't going to let the
boys run me to death, and oh, mother, Apache can get over the ground! I
never saw anything like the way he ran."

"No, neither have _I_," replied Mrs. Ashby significantly.

"You!" asked Beverly in surprise.

Mrs. Ashby nodded though her lips twitched.

Beverly's face clouded and her lips set.

"How did you see me?" she demanded.

"From the window of the north-east dormer chamber."

The girl's dark eyes grew darker and signs of a pending tempest lowered
as she asked:

"Mother did you go up there to spy upon me? You almost _never_ go into
that room. Didn't you believe me? Did you think I had to be watched? I
think that was horrid, horrid of you. You know I didn't mean to break my
word. I just forgot when the boys teased me about my calico plug and
_you_ wouldn't have stood for that if you'd been in my place. You just
know you wouldn't. You used to do crazier things when you were a girl for
Uncle Athol has told me just dozens and dozens of them. Why did you spy
upon me? Why? Why? I loathe being distrusted."

The storm had burst with a vengeance.

"Beverly hush and listen to me. If you will pause a moment you will know
perfectly well that I had no idea of 'spying' upon you. Have I ever done
so? You know better. It seems to me you are displaying some doubt also.
If I did not know it to be the outcome of your excitement I should
decline to make any explanation. As it is I'll tell you that I went up
there to get out your winter things in order to have them remodeled. By
chance I looked out of the window--it is a view rather worth looking
upon, you'll admit--and, well I saw a moving picture instead of the usual
quiet landscape and it was 'going some' as Athol would say." Mrs. Ashby
smiled involuntarily as she recalled the spirited action of that moving
picture.

"Yes wasn't it?" cried Beverly eagerly. "And, oh that little Apache is
some horse, mumsey."

Then her face resumed its defiant expression and she continued: "But I
showed them that they couldn't put it all over me and not pay for it.
They got the try-out of their lives and _I_ got