So it had been ten years since he had seen her last, yet he had cherished her, and she him, in memory, all that long time of busy scenes apart.
He pushed his small muzzle in and out among the laces and gauzes of her neck so gently they were not disarranged, and she pressed her cheek close to his. Something in the tones of her voice told him she was not happy, and as the delicious odor of her hair entered his nostrils he whinneyed a question, softly.
As if understanding, she answered, murmuring near his ear,
“Dear Little Horse,” there was a catch in her voice, “I cannot buy you, even now, for our money is all gone! Daddy is no manager; he has ever been what they call a ‘gentleman’ and our family mansion—‘where the Great Lloyd sets his Hall’—is to be sold to pay a most unjust ‘debt of honor’—I call it a debt of dishonor, for ’twas made at the gaming table; and though Judge Wing be ever so clever, he can do nothing now for my father and me!”
She leaned against Morgan; he heard a sob in her throat as she clasped his arched neck.
He whinneyed his tenderest sympathy, and maybe she would have told him more, but there came a sound of voices through the open door.
“Ah, here you are, my daughter!” It was the Colonel speaking. “Come and greet our friend who has ridden all the way from Boston to see us. He says he has a plan whereby we may save our home!” Colonel Lloyd spoke hopefully, if a little doubtfully.
Mistress Lloyd turned her face, flushed with emotion, and saw the Coxcomb, of whom Morgan had just caught scent.
“A plan?” she questioned him, after a cold greeting. “You mean a price! ’Tis the same old one,” she said wearily, “I do not need to be told!”
“My price,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “is offered out of friendship for your father and—”