“Father, you know Anthony Gayley—­that young carpenter in Torney’s shop?”

“I do, my dear.”

“Well, Clown ran away to-day, and he really saved me from a bad smash.”

A long pause.

“Ha!” said the doctor, presently.  “Set this down, will you, Sammy?  Rook to queen’s fourth.  Check.  Now, knight—­any move.  No—­hold on.  Yes.  Knight any move.  Now, rook—­wait a minute!”

His voice fell, his eyes were fixed.  Sammy sighed.

At eight she fell to mending the fire with such vigor that her colorless little face burned.  Then her spine felt chilly.  Sammy turned about, trying to toast evenly; but it couldn’t be done.  She thought suddenly of her warm bed, put her finger in her book, kissed her father’s bald spot between two yawns, and went upstairs.

The dreams went, too.  There was nothing in this neglected, lonely day, typical of all her days, to check them.  It was delicious, snuggling down in the chilly sheets, to go on dreaming.

Again she was riding alone in the woods.  Again Clown was running away.  Again, big gentle Anthony Gayley was galloping behind her.  Again for that breathless moment she was in his arms.  Sammy shut her eyes....

Her father, coming upstairs, wakened her.  She lay smiling in the dark.  What had she been thinking of?  Oh, yes!  And out came the dream horses and their riders again....

The next day she rode over the same bit of road again, and the day after, and the day after that.  The rides were absolutely uneventful, but sweet with dreams.

A week later Sammy teased Mrs. Moore into taking her to the Elks’ concert and dance at the Wheatfield Hall over the post-office.  When Mrs. Moore protested at this unheard-of proceeding, the girl used her one unfailing threat:  “Then I’ll tell father I want another governess!”

Mrs. Moore hated governesses.  There had been no governess at the doctor’s for two years.  She looked uneasy.  “You’ve nothing to wear,” said she.

“I’ll wear my embroidered linen,” said Sammy, “and Mary’s spangled scarf.”

“You oughtn’t borrow your sister’s things without permission,” said Mrs. Moore, half-heartedly.

“Mary’s in New York,” said Sammy, recklessly.  “She’s not been home for two years, and she may not be back for two more!  She won’t care.  I’m eighteen, and I’ve never been to a dance, and I’m going—­that’s all there is about it!”

And she burst into tears, and presently laughed herself out of them, and went to her sister’s orderly empty room to see what other treasures besides the spangled scarf Mary had left behind her.

Three months later, on a burning July afternoon, the Wheatfield “Terrors” played a team from the neighboring town of Copadoro.  Wheatfield’s population was reputedly nine hundred, and certainly almost that number of onlookers had gathered to watch the game.  The free seats were packed with perspiring women in limp summer gowns, and restless, crimson-faced children; and a shouting, vociferous line of men fringed the field.  But in the “grand stand,” where chairs rented for twenty-five cents, there was still some room.