The words were scarcely out of her lips when clear and sharp there rose the sound of metal's ringing blow against stone, followed by a quick "Ho—lá" in a woman's voice, and the instant stoppage of the regular "click-klack, click-klack" of a trotting horse.
Down under the gigantic willow—his favorite tree—had been sitting John Lawton, reading his paper, and now the girls saw him rise and hasten out to Broadway; saw him, with hat off, speaking to the fretful chestnut and his blue habited rider, who pointed backward with her crop. The watching girls, without hesitation, clambered over the low stone wall and came nearer. They made out that their father remonstrated, and the woman laughed. And then they caught from her the words: "Very kind, and in half an hour," and she was away again; but this time the "clipperty-clapperty-clip" told that she rode at a gallop. The girls fairly tore down the hill, crying "Papa—papa! what was it? Tell us about it!" But first he pointed to the disappearing pair, saying: "Look at that—that's not bad riding for a woman to do without a stirrup!"
"Without a stirrup?" questioned the girls. "Why, what do you mean, papa?"
"Just what I say. I told her it wasn't safe, but she says it's a poor horsewoman who can't ride from balance, and on she went; but she's—just wait a bit," he broke off, "I'll be back in a moment;" and he went down the road, crossed over to a large stone at the roadside, and, stooping, picked something up. Returning, the girls saw that he carried a woman's stirrup.
"That's what we heard clear up in the orchard!" said Sybil.
"Is she going to send for it?" asked Dorothy.
Sybil's very breath was suspended as she waited for the answer. How slow he was about it! At last, feeling in his pocket for a bit of twine, he replied:
"No; she's going to stop here and pick it up on her way home."
Sybil went white for an instant, then flushed red from brow to chin. Dorothy squeezed her hand sympathetically. Mr. Lawton took up the stirrup and examined the leather straps critically.
"I'm going to try to tie this thing on when she comes back. She rides all right enough for looks without it, but if that horse should shy, and I don't believe he's a bit above it, for he's as nervous as a headachy woman, she might be unseated, so I'm going——"