“Get off, Madge,” cried Mr. Muir, authoritatively, but the horse was speeding down the road toward the house, and Graydon, who had looked on breathlessly, followed.  Before they reached the hotel she had brought him up with the powerful curb, and prancing, curvetting, straining side-wise first in one direction, then in the other, meanwhile trembling half with anger, half with terror, the mastered brute passed the piazza with its admiring groups.  Graydon was at her side.  He did not see Miss Wildmere frowning with vexation and envy, or Arnault’s complacent observance.  With sternly compressed lips and steady eye he watched Madge, that, whatever emergency occurred, he might do all that was possible.  The young girl herself was a presence not soon to be forgotten.  Her lips were slightly parted, her eye glowing with a joyous sense of power, and her pose, flexible to the eccentric motions of the horse, grace itself.  They passed on down the winding carriage-drive, out upon the main street, and then she turned, waved her handkerchief to Mr. Muir, and with her companion galloped away.

Several of Mr. Muir’s acquaintances came forward, offering congratulations, which he accepted with his quiet smile, and then went up to reassure his wife, who, in spite of her words to the contrary, had kept her eyes fastened upon Madge as long as she was in sight.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “did you ever see anything equal to that?”

“No,” said her husband, “but I have seen nothing wonderful or unnatural; she did not do a thing that she had not been trained and taught to do, and all her acts were familiar by much usage.”

“I think she’s a prodigy,” exclaimed Mrs. Muir.

“Nothing of the kind.  She is a handsome girl, with good abilities, who has had the sense to make the most and best of herself instead of dawdling.”

After an easy gallop of a mile, in which Madge showed complete power to keep her horse from breaking into a mad run, she drew rein and looked at Graydon with a smile.  He took off his hat and bowed, laughingly.

“Oh, Graydon,” she said, “it was nice of you to let me have my own way!”

“I didn’t do it very graciously.  I have seldom been more worried in my life.”

“I’m glad you were a little worried,” she said.  “It recalls your look and tone at the time of our parting, when you said, ’Oh, Madge, do get well and strong!’ Haven’t I complied with your wish?”

“Had my wish anything to do with your compliance?”

“Why not?”

“What an idiot I’ve been!  I fear I have been misjudging you absurdly.  I’ve had no end of ridiculous thoughts and theories about you.”

“Indeed!  Apparently I had slight place in your thoughts at all, but I made great allowances for a man in your condition.”

“That was kind, but you were mistaken.  Why, Madge, we were almost brought up together, and I couldn’t reconcile the past and the present.  The years you spent in the far West, and their result, are more wonderful than a fairytale.  I wish you would tell me about them.”