“Why did you call me?”

“To see what mood you were in.”

“How disagreeable you are!  What is the use of venturing one’s mood with you?”

CHAPTER XXI.

Alice called me to her chamber window one morning.  “Look into the lane.  Charles and Jesse are there with that brute.  He goes very well, now that they have thrown the top of the chaise back; he quivered like a jelly at first.”

“I must have a ride, Alice.”

“Charles,” she called.  “Breakfast is waiting.”

“What shall be his name, girls?” he asked.

“Aspen,” I suggested.

“That will do,” said Alice.

“Shall we ride soon?” I asked.

“Will you?” he spoke quickly.  “In a day or two, then.”

“Know what you undertake, Cass,” said Alice.

“She always does,” he answered.

“Let me go, papa,” begged Edward.

“By and by, my boy.”

“What a compliment, Cass!  He does not object to venture you.”

He proposed Fairtown, six miles from Rosville, as he had business there.  The morning we were to go proved cloudy, and we waited till afternoon, when Charles, declaring that it would not rain, ordered Aspen to be harnessed.  I went into Alice’s room tying my bonnet; he was there, leaning over the baby’s crib, who lay in it crowing and laughing at the snapping of his fingers.  Alice was hemming white muslin.

“Take a shawl with you, Cass; I think it will rain, the air is so heavy.”

“I guess not,” said Charles, going to the window.  “What a nuisance that lane is, so near the garden!  I’ll have it plowed soon, and enclosed.”

“For all those wild primroses you value so?” she asked.

“I’ll spare those.”

Charlotte came to tell us that the chaise was ready.

“Good-bye, Alice,” he said, passing her, and giving her work a toss up to the ceiling.

“Be careful.”

“Take care, sir,” said Penn, after we were in the chaise, “and don’t give way to him; if you do, he’ll punish you.  May be he feels the thunder in the air.”

We reached Fairtown without any indication of mischief from Aspen, although he trotted along as if under protest.  Charles was delighted, and thought he would be very fast, by the time he was trained.  It grew murky and hot every moment, and when we reached Fairtown the air was black and sultry with the coming storm.  Charles left me at the little hotel, and returned so late in the afternoon that we decided not to wait for the shower.  Two men led Aspen to the door.  He pulled at his bridle, and attempted to run backward, playing his old trick of trying to turn his nostrils inside out, and drawing back his upper lip.

“Something irritates him, Charles.”

“If you are afraid, you must not come with me.  I can have you sent home in a carriage from the tavern.”