“But of course this made no impression on Stella—­she was standing on the centre table by now, so she could lamp herself in the glass over the mantel—­and then she tells me about the excursion for Saturday and how Mr. Burchell Daggett is enthused about it, him being a superb horseman himself, and, if I know what she means, don’t I think she carries herself in the saddle almost better than any girl in her set, and won’t her style show better than ever in this duck of a costume, and she must get her tan shoes polished, and do I think Mr. Daggett really meant anything when he said he’d expect her some day to return the masonic pin she had lifted off his vest the other night at the dance, and so on.

“It was while she was babbling this stuff that I get the strange hunch that Hetty Tipton is in grave danger and I ought to run to her; it seemed almost I could hear her calling on me to save her from some horrible fate.  So I tell Stella yes, she’s by far the finest rider in the whole Kulanche Valley, and she ought to get anything she wants with that suit on, and then I beat it quick over to the Ezra Button house where Hetty boards.

“You can laugh all you want to, but that hunch of mine was the God’s truth.  Hetty was in the gravest danger she’d faced since one time in early infancy when she got give morphine for quinine.  What made it more horrible, she hadn’t the least notion of her danger.  Quite the contrary.

“‘Thank the stars I’ve come in time!’ I gasps as I rushes in on her, for there’s the poor girl before her mirror in a pair of these same Non Plush Ultras and looking as pleased with herself as if she had some reason to be.

“‘Back into your skirts quick!’ I says.  ’I’m a strong woman and all that, but still I can be affected more than you’d think.’

“Poor Hetty stutters and turns red and her chin begins to quiver, so I gentled her down and tried to explain, though seeing quick that I must tell her everything but the truth.  I reckon nothing in this world can look funnier than a woman wearing them things that had never ought to for one reason or another.  There was more reasons than that in Hetty’s case.  Dignity was the first safe bet I could think of with her, so I tried that.

“‘I know all you would say,’ says the poor thing in answer, ’but isn’t it true that men rather like one to be—­oh, well, you know—­just the least bit daring?’

“‘Truest thing in the world,’ I says, ’but bless your heart, did you suspicion riding breeches was daring on a woman?  Not so.  A girl wearing ’em can’t be any more daring after the first quick shock is over than—­well, you read the magazines, don’t you?  You’ve seen those pictures of family life in darkest Africa that the explorers and monkey hunters bring home, where the wives, mothers, and sweethearts, God bless ’em! wear only what the scorching climate demands.  Didn’t it strike you that one of them women without anything on would have a hard time if she tried to be daring—­or did it?  No woman can be daring without the proper clothes for it,’ I says firmly, ’and as for you, I tell you plain, get into the most daring and immodest thing that was ever invented for woman—­which is the well-known skirt.’