"Certainly!" said Gertrude. "Peggy, you and I will sit together behind; that is, if you do not mind the front seat, Colonel Ferrers? So! all right now, Jack! we'd better let the old horse go first, for he doesn't like to stay behind the new one. Oh! Jacob! how are you going home? we must make room for you somewhere."
"I'll go across lots," said the blue youth, "and be there to take the horses when you get there. You better hurry them up the least mite, so's I sha'n't have to wait too long!"
With a benign smile he vaulted over a five-barred gate, and went with a long, leisurely stride across the fields.
"He'll run when he gets round the corner!" said Gerald. "I know that's the way he does it. Get up, Frank! do play you are alive, just for once. Oh, Margaret, I am so glad to see you. I thought September would never come. It has been the longest summer I ever knew. Haven't you found it so?"
"Why, no!" said truthful Margaret. "It has seemed very short to me."
"Oh, well, of course it has been short too, summers always are; like the dachshund!"
"The dachshund!" repeated Margaret. "What can a dachshund have to do with summer, Gerald?"
"A description I once heard," said Gerald. "I was walking with Beppo, my dachs, and a little boy stopped to look at him. 'Ain't he long?' he said. 'My! ain't he short?' Even so summer. Oh, I am glad to see you. Get up, Frank!"