“Massa, am dis de little missy dat yo’ wuz tellin’ ’bout?  I’se powerful glad to meet yo’, missy.”

He was so very polite that even irrepressible Beth was a little awed.  She hid halfway behind her father.

“This is January, Beth.”

“What a very queer name,” she whispered.

“It is queer, but you are in a strange land.  For awhile you’ll think you are in fairy-land.  Everything will be so different.  Do you want to stay with January while I go in to bring your mother?”

She nodded that she did.  Mr. Davenport reentered the hotel.  Beth seated herself upon the curbstone, and looked at the bay horse behind which she was soon to have the bliss of driving.  She thought it about as nice a horse as she had ever seen.  Her curiosity overcame her momentary shyness.  “Is it your horse, January?”

He smiled.  “No, ’deed, missy, but I raised her from a colt, and she loves me like I wuz her massa.  Why, she runs to me from de pasture when I jes’ calls, while she’s dat ornary wid odders, dey jes’ can’t cotch her.  It takes old January to cotch dis horse, don’t it, Dolly?”

The horse whinnied.

“Is Dolly her name?”

“Dat’s what I calls her, honey.  It ain’t her real name.  Her real name——­”

“Oh, has she a nickname, too?  She’s like me then.  My name isn’t really Beth.”

“’Deed?” he asked with polite interest.

“It’s Elizabeth, but I’m called that only when I have tantrums.”

“What am dem, missy?”

“Well,” she blushingly stammered, “I sometimes forget to be good, and then I can’t help having them—­tantrums, you know.  Just like the little girl with the curl who, when she was bad, was horrid.  January, are you ever horrid?”

He looked self-conscious.  “Law, missy, I nebber tinks I am, but Titus ’lows I am, but he don’t know much nohow.”

Dolly whinnied again, which recalled Beth’s thoughts to the horse.  “Who owns Dolly, January?”

“Law, missy, didn’t I tole yo’ dat she ’longs to yer paw now?”

Beth was so excited that she jumped to her feet, and began to clap her hands.

Her antics made her parents and Marian smile as they came from the hotel.

“Mamma, she’s our horse.  January said so.  Dolly, do you like me?”

Dolly pricked up her ears as if she understood, and whinnied.

“She wants some sugar,” declared Beth, believing that she understood horse language.  She took a stale piece of candy out of her pocket, and gave it to Dolly.  This attention sealed a never-ending friendship between the two.

“Dolly’s the surprise, isn’t she?” asked Beth, running up to her father.  He smiled enigmatically, and that was all the answer she received.

Meantime, January, hat in hand, was bowing with Chesterfieldian politeness to Mrs. Davenport and Marian.

“All aboard,” cried Mr. Davenport.