For some moments Floretta stood watching the odd little figure as it tramped down the road, the umbrella, like a huge walking stick, thumping the gravel at every step. She thought Arabella would turn around, but she did not.
One might have thought that she had already forgotten the child with whom she had been talking. When, at last, she disappeared behind a clump of trees that hid the curve of the road, Floretta looked at the two cards in her hand, stared at them in amazement, and then laughed, laughed until her eyes were full of tears.
Who could have helped laughing? One card bore these lines:
James Horton Worth,
Painless Dentistry,
10 Trevor Street, Merrivale.
While the other, equally interesting, bore this statement:
Alton Justus Meer,
Jeweller,
90 Rupert Road, Merrivale.
"How perfectly funny," cried Floretta. "I'll run up and show them to mamma, and then I'll wait here to give them to Dorothy and Nancy when they come. I wonder if they'll have any choice?"
Dorothy and Nancy felt, as did the older members of the party, that the ride had been the most delightful of any that they had enjoyed since their arrival.
The horses were tossing their manes, and Romeo, as if in imitation, tossed his so that it showed all its silken beauty.
"See him!" cried Dorothy. "He thinks he's as fine as any horse."