But we gave her little encouragement.  We would go along, and told her so.  But further than that I refused to prepare.  I would not skate, and said so.

“Very well, Lizzie,” she said.  “Don’t blame me if you find yourself unable to cope with mountain hardships.  I merely felt this way:  if each of us could do one thing well it might be helpful.  There’s always snow, and if Aggie would learn to use snowshoes it might be valuable.”

“Where could I practice?” Aggie demanded.

But Tish went on, ignoring Aggie’s sarcastic tone.  “And if you, Lizzie, would learn to throw a lasso, or lariat,—­I believe both terms are correct,—­it would be a great advantage, especially in case of meeting ferocious animals.  The park laws will not allow us to kill them, and it would be mighty convenient, Lizzie.  Not to mention that it would be an accomplishment few women possess.”

I refused to make the attempt, although Tish sent for the clothesline, and with the aid of the encyclopaedia made a loop in the end of it.  Finally she became interested herself, and when we left rather downhearted at ten o’clock she had caught the rocking-chair three times and broken the clock.

Aggie and I prepared with little enthusiasm, I must confess.  We had as much love for the rocks and rills of our great country as Tish, but, as Aggie observed, there were rocks and rocks, and one could love them without climbing up them or falling off them.

The only comfort we had was that Charlie Sands said that we should ride ponies, and not horses.  My niece’s children have a pony which is very gentle and not much larger than a dog, which comes up on the porch for lumps of sugar.  We were lured to a false sense of security, I must say.

As far as we could see, Tish was making few preparations for the trip.  She said we could get everything we needed at the park entrance, and that the riding was merely sitting in a saddle and letting the pony do the rest.  But on the 21st of June, the anniversary of the day Aggie was to have been married, we went out to decorate Mr. Wiggins’s last resting-place, and coming out of the cemetery we met Tish.

She was on a horse, astride!

She was not alone.  A gentleman was riding beside her, and he had her horse by a long leather strap.

She pretended not to see us, and Aggie unfortunately waved her red parasol at her.  The result was most amazing.  The beast she was on jerked itself free in an instant, and with the same movement, apparently, leaped the hedge beside the road.  One moment there was Tish, in a derby hat and breeches, and the next moment there was only the gentleman, with his mouth open.

Aggie collapsed, moaning, in the road, and beyond the hedge we could hear the horse leaping tombstones in the cemetery.

“Oh, Tish!” Aggie wailed.

I broke my way through the hedge to find what was left of her, while the riding-master bolted for the gate.  But to my intense surprise Tish was not on the ground.  Then I saw her.  She was still on the creature, and she was coming back along the road, with her riding-hat on the back of her head and a gleam in her eye that I knew well enough was a gleam of triumph.