“My dear child, don’t—pray don’t,” cried Aunt Anne. “You’ll be having some accident. Suppose that horse put his foot through the glass.”
“Good job for the glazier. Here Tom Beck, give Biddy some lumps of sugar.”
“Bless the child!” cried Aunt Anne. “Oh, here’s Isabel. Mr Beck, take the sugar basin, and back that dreadful animal out.”
The young sailor obeyed her to the letter, as Isabel entered to look on laughingly, while the other touched the skittish mare upon which she was seated, so that it might join in crunching up the sweet pieces of sugar with which they were fed in turn.
“Morning, parson,” said the new arrival with the deep-toned voice, to Tom Beck, as the young lieutenant went on sugaring the two steeds. “Thought you were off to sea again.”
“Did you?” said Beck, meeting his eyes with a lump of sugar in his hand, and with rather a stern, fixed look, from which the new arrival turned with a half laugh.
“Yes; you sailors are here to-day and gone to-morrow.”
“Exactly,” said Beck; “but this is to-day and not to-morrow.”
“Mr Beck—take care!”
It was Isabel who cried out in alarm, but her warning was too late, for the handsome mare which Dana Lydon rode had stretched out its neck and taken the lump of sugar the young lieutenant was holding; and as he turned sharply, it was at the sudden grip, for the greater part of his hand was held between the horse’s teeth.