“Good! That will just suit him, but I shall never lend him to a lady to ride him far away. Oh, no, we don’t want to get out yet.”
“But the little pony must be tired. He has come a long distance to-day.”
That put another face upon the matter and Adele was quite willing that Jessie should give up the reins to Otto who led Dapple Gray to the stable.
“I never knew such lovely things as happen nowadays,” said Adele as she and Jessie returned to the garden. “First I met you and we had the lovely plays down by the brook, then came Eb, and now this dear Dapple Gray! Before I came here weeks and weeks used to go by and nothing at all happened. I do hope we can go driving every day by ourselves; it would be such fun.”
Within a week Adele had learned to manage her pony pretty well, and the two little girls were allowed to take a short drive each day, not going out of sight of the house, but in time Adele tired of this and was bent upon going farther. She begged and entreated till Miss Betty was on the point of yielding, and at last agreed to take a longer drive than usual in her own carriage that Adele and Jessie might follow in the pony cart. This satisfied Adele for a week, but there came a day when Miss Betty had one of her severe headaches, and Miss Eloise was not willing to leave her, so the two little girls were told they could take their drive alone, but must not go out of sight.
They started off contentedly enough, but soon Adele became tired of the monotonous drive up and down in front of the house. “Miss Eloise is with Aunt Betty and I know she isn’t thinking about us,” she said. “We may just as well go a little further and she will never know. It is so silly to go up and down, up and down, this stupid road and nowhere else.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t be right, whether she sees us or not,” protested Jessie.
“There isn’t a bit of harm in it,” Adele insisted. “We go every day, and just because we are not with them it doesn’t matter. I am going further whether any one likes it or not.” She gave a little jerk to the reins and Dapple Gray started off on a trot. The excitement of a faster gait stirred Adele to further desire for a rapid drive. “I am tired to death of this old road,” she declared. “I want to go somewhere new. I am going to turn up this way.”
“Oh, no, please don’t,” begged Jessie.
“You needn’t say a word,” Adele interrupted. “You haven’t a thing to do with it. This is my pony and my cart, and you have to do it to sit still. You are my company and I am taking you to drive.”