“Take it if you want it,” said Virginia.
“But cannot you have it sent?” said Roden, as the girl held out her hand for the lamb. “I am afraid you will get blood all over your habit, Miss—” He had not meant to fish for her name, and stopped abruptly.
She looked at him with a soft smiling of lips and eyes. “My name is Erroll—Mary Erroll,” she said. “And thank you, I would rather take it. Laurin will follow me now. Ah, you beast!”
“You will have to put it down until you mount,” said Roden, laughing a little in spite of himself, as the old lines about Mary and her little lamb crossed his mind.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t put it down,” she said, hastily. “Miss Herrick will hold it for me, won’t you?—and if you would be so kind as to mount me, Mr. Roden.”
“You know my name?” said Roden, as he took the slight foot, arched like Bonnibel’s crest, into his hand.
“Why, who in the neighborhood does not?” she said, settling herself in the saddle. “Not to know you would be to argue one’s self very much unknown in this neighborhood. Now give me the lamb. Thank you so much. Come, Laurin. Good-by, Miss Herrick.” She placed the lamb carefully against her side, whistled to the hound, and started off at a round trot. Her figure, in its trim Quorn-cloth habit, came into bold relief against the vivid sky. He watched admiringly the long supple waist as it swayed to the motion of the horse, the bold graceful sweep of the shoulders, and high carriage of the small head. He had read so much concerning the gathers and gilt braid of the Virginian horsewoman that it struck him as something entirely strange, the fact that Miss Mary Erroll should wear a neat, well-cut habit, and a chimney-pot hat. He also recalled that her saddle was all that it should be, and that instead of the gold-and-ivory-handled cutting whip which he had been led to expect, she carried a light but sturdy crop.
“By Jove! how she rides!” he said to himself.
“Don’t I ride as well?” came the soft monotone of Virginia at his ear.