After all, down in plain ink on plain paper, it was very simple. Across the street from the parsonage was a little white cottage set back among tall cedars. In this cottage lived a girl named Mattie Moore,—a common, unlovely, unexciting girl, with whom Romance could not apparently be intimately concerned. Mattie Moore taught a country school five miles out from town, and she rode to and from her school, morning and evening, on a bicycle.
Years before, when Prudence was young and bicycles were fashionable, she had been intensely fond of riding. But as she gained in age, and bicycles lost in popularity, she discarded the amusement as unworthy a parsonage damsel.
One evening, early in June, when the world was fair to look upon, it was foreordained that Prudence should be turning in at the parsonage gate just as Mattie Moore whirled up, opposite, on her dusty wheel. Prudence stopped to interchange polite inanities with her neighbor, and Mattie, wheeling the bicycle lightly beside her, came across the street and stood beneath the parsonage maples with Prudence. They talked of the weather, of the coming summer, of Mattie's school, rejoicing that one more week would bring freedom from books for Mattie and the younger parsonage girls.
Then said Prudence, seemingly of her own free will, but really directed by an all-controlling Providence, "Isn't it great fun to ride a bicycle? I love it. Sometime will you let me ride your wheel?"
"Why, certainly. You may ride now if you like."
"No," said Prudence slowly, "I am afraid it would not do for me to ride now. Some of the members might see me, and—well, I am very grown up, you know.—Of course," she added hastily, "it is different with you. You ride for business, but it would be nothing but a frolic with me. I want to get up at six o'clock and go early in the morning when the world is fast asleep. Let me take it to-morrow morning, will you? It is Saturday, and you won't be going to school."
"Yes, of course you may," was the hearty answer. "You may stay out as long as you like. I'm going to sew to-morrow. You make take it in the parsonage now and keep it until morning. I always sleep late on Saturdays."
So Prudence delightedly tripped up the parsonage board walk, wheeling the bicycle by her side. She hid it carefully in the woodshed, for the twins were rash and venturesome. But after she had gone to bed, she confided her plan to Fairy.
"I'm going at six o'clock, and I'll be back in time to get breakfast. But as you know, Fairy, my plans do not always work out as I intend, so if I am a little late, you'll get breakfast for papa and the girls, like a dear, won't you?"
Fairy promised. And early the next morning, Prudence, in a plain gingham house dress, with the addition of a red sweater jacket and cap for warmth, set out upon her secret ride. It was a magnificent morning, and Prudence sang for pure delight as she rode swiftly along the country roads. The country was simply irresistible. It was almost intoxicating. And Prudence rode farther than she had intended. East and west, north and south, she went, apparently guided only by her own caprice. She knew it was growing late, "but Fairy'll get breakfast," she thought comfortably.