Few like to have their kindnesses returned upon themselves, unappreciated: Betty Calvert less than most: so with a feeling of affront, which she was too outspoken wholly to corer by politeness, she said:
"Mr. Smith, I must go home. May Dorothy Chester take your horse and wagon and drive me there?"
"Of course, and proud to have you use it. But can that little girl drive?" he asked, glancing at the child with a funny smile. Well he knew the retort he might expect—and presently received, amid a burst of kindly laughter from others around—from the lady:
"My good Mr. Smith, I sold you that nag. He's twenty years old if a day. A babe in arms could drive him! and I'll send a capable horseman back with him—and her. Good-day, all; and God speed the finish!"
She said it quite devoutly, thankful for the present help given the crippled, would-be farmer, and knowing that with even the best of help his future would be difficult.
A few moments later, for the first time in her life, Dorothy held a pair of reins in her hands, clutching them tightly as if all her strength were required to restrain the speed of the venerable animal hitched before the open "democrat" in which she sat, and that nothing could induce to anything swifter than a walk. Once she opened her lips and asked, nervously:
"Are you—much afraid, Mrs. Calvert?"
"Not—much!" quavered that lady, in mimicry, and with the most admiring contemplation of the earnest young face beside her. From the flapping ears of their steed Dorothy's own eyes never wavered. It was a wonderful experience. To pull on either rein and guide so big a creature to the right or left—Why, she had seen others drive but she had never before realized the great intelligence of a horse! Oh! how delightful it would be to own one for one's self! All the inborn love of horseflesh that, till that moment, she had not realized woke up in her small breast, and finally found voice in the exclamation:
"Oh! If Daisy-Jewel had only been a colt instead of a calf!"
"A perfectly simple matter to change him into one," quietly returned Mrs. Cecil; and hearing her, Dorothy wondered if this old gentlewoman were in truth the "fairy godmother" to whom she had sometimes likened her.