“Of course the rabid young hoydens up ahead made a feeble effort now and then to carry it off lightly, and from time to time sang ’My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,’ or ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ with the high, squeaky tenor of Roth Hyde sounding above the others very pretty in the moonlight, but it was poor work as far as these enraged vestals was concerned.  If I’d been Hetty and had got a strange box of candy through the mail the next week, directed in a disguised woman’s hand, I’d of rushed right off to the police with it, not waiting for any analysis.  And she, poor thing, would get so frightened at bad spots, with the fierce old horse bobbing about so dangerous, that she just has to be held on.  And once she wrenched her ankle against a horrid old tree on the trail—­she hadn’t been able to resist a little one—­and bit her under lip as the spasm of pain passed over her refined features.  But she was all right in a minute and begged Mr. D. not to think of bathing it in cold water because it was nothing—­nothing at all, really now—­and he would embarrass her frightfully if he said one more word about it.  And Mr. D. again remarked that she was feminine to her finger tips, a brave, game little woman, one of the gamest he ever knew.  And pretty soon—­what was she thinking about now?  Why, she was merely wondering if horses think in the true sense of the word or only have animal instinct, as it is called.  And wasn’t she a strange, puzzling creature to be thinking on deep subjects like that at such a time!  Yes, she had been called puzzling as a child, but she didn’t like it one bit.  She wanted to be like other girls, if he knew what she meant.  He seemed to.

“They took Hetty home first on account of her poor little ankle and sung ‘Good Night, Ladies,’ at the gate.  And so ended a day that was wreck and ruin for most of our sex there present.

“And to show you what a good, deep, scientific cause I had discovered, the next night at Hetty’s who shows up one by one but these four men about town, each with a pound of mixed from the Bon Ton Handy Kitchen, and there they’re all setting at the feet of Hetty, as it were, in her new light summer gown with the blue bows, when Mr. D. blows in with a two-pound box and the novel in which love conquered all.  So excited she was when she tells me about it next day.  The luck of that girl!  But after all it wasn’t luck, because she’d laid her foundations the day before, hadn’t she?  Always look a little bit back of anything that seems to be luck, say I.

“And Hetty with shining eyes entertained one and all with the wit and sparkle a woman can show only when there’s four or five men at her at once—­it’s the only time we ever rise to our best.  But she got a chance for a few words alone with Mr. D., who took his hat finally when he sees the other four was going to set him out; enough words to confide to him how she loathed this continual social racket to which she was constantly subjected,