“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”
“Dear Joan!”
“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of my beauty.”
“That proves him false.”
“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”
She showed a silver pin like a skewer.
“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.
“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give him——”
“What, woman?”
“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour, grandfather; and where are we?”