"Oh, as far as that goes! Just hold on tight, though. Get up, John!"
She drew a taut rein and flicked the horse over the ear. He was a mettlesome five-year-old, and he rushed into his best gait at once. "Here we go!" she cried, "Sunday or no Sunday. I hate to poke."
She rushed him through the outskirts of the town; she bumped over the cumbrous plank crossings, she grazed one or two of the wooden posts that held up oil-lamps, she charged a flock on its homeward way from church and cut it into two frightened and indignant halves. She was on her native heath; she felt it; she showed it.
George grasped the buggy-cover with his left hand and held his right in readiness to seize the reins. The buggy, with many a bump and sudden wrench, sped on over the stones and ruts and puddles and rough crossings of an indifferent country road, and presently it turned into a yard with a rasping graze on one of the two painted white posts that made the entrance way. On the side porch of the house stood the girl's parents. They were laughing.
Jessie jumped out briskly. She struck a masculine attitude on the carriage-block, her right hand resting on the stock of her whip, her left arm a-kimbo.
"I was to get yer through on time; them was my orders, and here ye are!"
George climbed out carefully.
"Poor Horace!" chuckled Bradley, coming down; "he's here all right, but is he able to give his lecture?"
Mrs. Bradley followed, to shake hands. She wore a black silk dress, and there was a bit of lace over her thin hair—an adornment which her consciousness seemed to put forth as a modish novelty. Her wrinkles all flowed together in a companionable smile.
"He may have lost his voice on the way," she joked, "but we hope he saved his appetite."