The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding

by Annie F. Johnston

Lloyd opened her mouth to protest that she had not yet given her consent, but closed it again as the old Colonel began expressing his pleasure at such an arrangement. She felt trapped. It was to please him that she had learned to play on her grandmother's harp. Any reference to it always put him in a gentle humour. She wanted him to be cordial and friendly with Leland, and was glad that he was no longer prejudiced against him, so she held her peace; but it exasperated her to have her consent taken for granted in such a high-handed way. He had ridden over her objection as regardlessly as if she had never made any.

She had boasted to herself, "He needn't put on any of his lordly ways with me!" and here she was submitting meekly, without a word. It worried her after they had driven away. All the time she was up in her room, getting ready for lunch, she kept thinking about it.

"I'll just give him to undahstand that it was on grandfathah's account," she decided finally. "Instead of my influencing him as Gay expected, it looks as if he were winding me around his fingah. But he isn't! He sha'n't! I'll take the lessons, but I'll have no foolishness about it. I'll surprise him by sticking strictly to business, and I'll set him a good example of the way to live up to his own family motto."

Mrs. Sherman, who made no objection to the lessons since the old Colonel approved of them so heartily, was on the front porch with her embroidery when Leland came up the next morning, the first of July, to give the first lesson. She smiled to see how energetically Lloyd threw herself into it, thinking it was a matter of pride with her to show him what rapid progress she could make.

It certainly was a matter of pride with the Colonel, who enjoyed being waylaid to hear how beautifully she could count to one hundred or name the months of the year. It became his habit to take the book, while, perched on the arm of his chair, she rattled off the vocabulary for the day's lesson, and reviewed all the others.

"That's right! That's right!" he would say encouragingly. "At this rate you'll soon be ready for a trip to the Alhambra, and I'm blessed if I don't take you some of these days. I've always wanted to go."

When Kitty came home from the springs Lloyd insisted on her joining the class, but she declared she was too far behind to attempt catching up. Besides she was in charge of affairs at home now, and Elise was to have a house-party soon. There were half a dozen good reasons why she could not take the time. The principal one, which she did not give however, was that it was plain to be seen that Leland was more interested in studying Lloyd than in teaching her a language, and under such circumstances, Kitty preferred not to make the third party.

So while Kitty's mornings were filled with her housekeeping duties, Betty's with her writing and Gay's with her music and plans to keep Lucy occupied, it gradually came about that Leland spent more and more of his time at The Locusts. The lessons lasted only an hour, but after that he usually found some excuse to stay: there was a new song that he wanted to hear, or a game of tennis, or a stroll down to the post-office. Sometimes when he had no excuse at all he lingered anyhow, lounging on the shady porch, and talking of anything that happened to come uppermost. Then at night he was often there again, either because The Locusts was the gathering place of the Clan, and a frolic was afoot, or he went to escort Lloyd and Betty to the Cabin or The Beeches to some entertainment the other girls had planned.

"My oh! What a buttahfly I'm getting to be!" laughed Lloyd one evening as she went into her mother's room to have her dress buttoned. "A hawse-back ride this mawning, a picnic this aftahnoon, and now the rustic dance in the Mallards' barn to-night. But nevah mind, little mothah," she added with a hug, as she caught a wistful look on Mrs. Sherman's face. "It'll all be ovah soon. This is the last summah of my teens. When I am old and twenty I'll nevah leave yoah side. 'I'll sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam' and take all the housekeeping cares off yoah shouldahs as a dutiful daughtah should."

Mrs. Sherman gave her shoulder a caressing pat as she fastened the last button. "I'm glad to have you go, dear," she answered, "especially to all the out-door merry-makings. They keep you young and well. Papa Jack and I will walk over after awhile and look on."