"If you want to see the calf," he said, but very reluctantly, "I'll saddle my horse and we'll go over to the back pasture."
"Don't saddle your horse," objected Harriet, opening the carriage door and moving over to the far cushion, "ride with me."
He had never ridden in a brougham, and as he got in very nervously and awkwardly, he reversed his figure and tried to sit on the little front seat on which lay Harriet's handkerchief and parasol.
"Don't ride backwards, Mr. Webb," suggested Harriet. "Unless you are used to it, you are apt to have a headache," and she tapped the cushion beside her as an invitation to him. "Now tell me about my calf," she said after they were seated side by side.
As she introduced this subject, Ambrose suddenly looked out of the window. She caught sight of his uneasy profile.
"Now, don't tell me that there's any bad hews about it!" she cried.
"It is the only pet I have."
"Miss Harriet," he said, turning his face farther away, "you forget how long your calf has been out here; it isn't a calf any longer: it has had a calf."
He spoke so sternly that Harriet, who all her life had winced before sternness, felt herself in some wise to be blamed. And coolness was settling down upon them when she desired only a melting and radiant warmth.
"Well," she objected apologetically, "isn't it customary? What's the trouble? What's the objection? This is a free country! Whatever is natural is right! Why are you so displeased?"
About the same hour the next Monday morning Ambrose was again pacing his hallway and thinking of Harriet. At least she was no tyrant: the image of her softness rose before him again. "I make no mistake this time."