The rearing thoroughbred descended to earth with slim inquiring ears thrown forward, and I remembered that Blister had described Mrs. Dillon's voice as "good to listen at."
"Look, Virginia, she knows me!" the velvet voice exclaimed.
Another voice, rather heavy for a woman, but with a fascinating drawl in it, answered:
"Perhaps she fancies you have a milk bottle with you. Isn't this the one you and Uncle Jake raised on a bottle?"
"Yass'm, yass, Miss Vahginia, dat's her! Dat's ma Honey-bird!" came in excited tones from an ancient negro, who alighted stiffly from the motor and peered in our direction. As they approached, he held Mrs. Dillon by the sleeve, and I realized that for Uncle Jake the sun would never shine again.
Judge Dillon, a big-boned silent man, I had met. And after the shower of questions poured upon Blister had abated, and the mare had been gentled, petted and given a lump of sugar with a final hug, he presented me to his wife.
"My cousin, Miss Goodloe," said Mrs. Dillon, and I sensed a mass of tawny hair under the motor veil and looked into a pair of blue eyes set wide apart beneath a broad white brow. It was no time for details.
It developed that Miss Goodloe was from Tennessee, that she was visiting the Dillons at Thistle Ridge near Lexington, and that she liked a small book of verses of which I had been guilty. It further developed that Mrs. Dillon had talked me over with an aunt of mine in Cincinnati, that we were mutually devoted to Blister, and that he had described me to her as "the most educated guy allowed loose." This last I learned as Judge Dillon and Blister discussed the derby some distance from us.
"I feel awed and diffident in the presence of such learning," said Miss Goodloe almost sleepily. "Why did I neglect my opportunities at Dobbs Ferry!"
"I would give a good deal to observe you when you felt diffident, Virginia," said Mrs. Dillon, with a laugh like a silver bell. "Uncle Jake!" she called, "we are going now."