“Well, now, dear dears,” she had said with a little smile and a little sigh, “we have been happy ... only a little way away....”
But with Dad it was different. Somehow, looking back on it, one had supposed that nothing would ever touch the cheery little man; that she and he would go on and on and on—well, till they grew very old together.
Nothing could ever touch him....
“What a wicked beauty, eh, Mary?” he had said when the man brought round the half-broken filly that its owner “funked.”
And she had laughed and said: “Yes, an angel in a temper—what a run you will have, Dad!” and had waved from the gate as the angel in a temper curveted away around the corner.
Nothing could ever touch him....
And then the man on a bicycle—with a dent in his hat, she noticed.
“If you can come quickly, missy. Top of the Three Finger field he lays.”
Bare-backed she had galloped Grizzle there, and as she sped could not for the life of her think of aught else than the dent in the man's hat; rode up Three Finger Lane wondering how it came there; approached the little group wondering why he did not push it out.
Just as she galloped up they took off their hats. Someone who had been on his knees stood upright—she saw the stain of wet earth where he had been kneeling; forgot the dented hat; wondered if he knew of the Marvel Cleaning Pad that had done so wonderfully with Dad's breeches when he took a toss last Friday.