“I’ll find out the very first chance I get,” promised Joanne earnestly, and remembering that Joanne was not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Winnie was satisfied that she would push the matter.
An opportunity to question Mr. Pattison and also to make her first attempt to ride Chico was vouchsafed Joanne no later than the next Friday when Cousin Ned appeared to bear her off with her grandfather for a week end in the country.
“Wild flowers are out, fish biting,” announced Cousin Ned. “Now’s your chance. If you want to take advantage of this fine weather while it lasts, you’d better come up. Aunt Alice, you’ll come, won’t you please?”
Mrs. Selden raised a hand in protest. “Oh, Ned, dear, it is very kind of you to want me, but I am not fond of roughing it, and from what I hear I am afraid I shouldn’t enjoy it. Then, too, one is so liable to take cold this time of year in making sudden changes.”
Mr. Pattison nodded understandingly. He had scarcely expected his invitation to be accepted. “You’ll come, won’t you?” he turned to his uncle, “and Jo, of course.”
“Do you think it would be wise to take Joanne?” inquired Mrs. Selden. “Of course it is just as you say, Gregory, but if she should take cold——”
“She won’t,” Dr. Selden interrupted. “Let her take plenty of warm things and her rubbers. I’ll carry along a medicine case, if you say so, and I’ll be there to doctor her if she sneezes.”
Joanne looked at Cousin Ned and hid a little chuckle as he drew down his mouth and gave a sly wink.
So, after receiving many charges not to get her feet wet, not to sit up late, not to get tired, not to eat anything which might disagree with her, Joanne set off with her grandfather and cousin to spin through the wide streets, across a bridge to old Georgetown and then up the river road where lovely vistas of the blue Potomac and the Virginia hills beyond met her eyes when she looked that way. It was a good road most of the distance until they turned off into a private way. At the gate leading to this Joanne spied two figures.
“Look, look!” she cried, “there are Pablo and old Unc’ Aaron. They are watching for us.”