had ridden through one bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second bottle could ride a short distance alone.  But Lorania could not yet dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her.  Captain Carr had a peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one hand while he steadied the handles with the other.  He did not hesitate in the least to grab Lorania’s belt if necessary.  But poor modest Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady’s bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily in a fresh pair of white trousers.

“Yous have now,” Shuey remarked, impressively, one day—­“yous have now arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the wheel.  It’s similar to a baby when it’s first learned to walk but ’ain’t yet got sense in walking.  When it was little it would stay put wherever ye put it, and it didn’t know enough to go by itself, which is similar to you.  When I was holding ye you couldn’t fall, but now you’re off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by falling—­”

“Oh, couldn’t you go with her somehow?” exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled at the picture.  “Wouldn’t a rope round her be some help?  I used to put it round Cyril when he was learning to walk.”

“Well, no, ma’am,” said Shuey, patiently.  “Don’t you be scared; the riding will come; she’s getting on grandly.  And ye should see Mr. Winslow.  ’Tis a pleasure to teach him.  He rode in one lesson.  I ain’t learning him nothing but tricks now.”

“But, Mr. Winslow, why don’t you ride here—­with us?” said Sibyl, with her coquettish and flattering smile.  “We’re always hearing of your beautiful riding.  Are we never to see it?”

“I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I hear about,” said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his eyelids.

Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl.  Why need the girl make game of an honest man who loved her?  Sibyl was biting her lips and darting side glances at the captain.  She called the pasture practice slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan.  Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that Sibyl and the captain understood each other.  She thought that even if Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow’s feelings.  She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for Sibyl’s absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that concealed the pain that he must feel.  It became quite the expected thing for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet appeared on his wheel.  He used to bring a box of candy with him, or rather three boxes—­one for each lady, he said—­and a box of peppermints for his mother.  He was always very attentive to his mother.