“Done!” cried Ray, catching the excitement now sparkling in the dark, brilliant face of the little fay beside him; and crushing his cap down over his thick curls, he bounded after her as she dashed away.
But Pet was better mounted, and the best rider of the two; and a ringing, triumphant laugh came borne tantalizingly to his ears as she distanced him by full twenty yards, and galloped up to the little white cottage on the Barrens.
“Fairly beaten!” he said, laughing, as he sprung off. “I am forced to own myself conquered, though I hate to do it.”
Though he laughed, his look of intense mortification showed how galling was defeat.
“Ahem! and how do you expect to be raised to the dignity of my husband some day, if you don’t learn to ride better? Why, when we’re married, I’ll have to give you lessons!” said Pet, demurely; though her wicked eyes were twinkling with irrepressible fun under their long lashes.
“Oh, I see!” said Ray, gayly. “Poetical justice, eh? Paying me in my own coin? Well, if you can beat me in riding, you can’t in anything else!”
“Can’t I, though?” said Pet, defiantly. “Just you try target-shooting, or pulling a stroke oar with me, and you’ll see! Schools where they teach you the Greek for bootjack ain’t the best places for learning them sort of things, I reckon!”
The thunder of horses’ hoofs had by this time brought another personage to the stage.
It was Erminie—“sweet Erminie,” the little beauty, and heiress of a princely fortune and estate.
The promise of Erminie’s childhood had been more than fulfilled. Wondrously lovely she was! How could the child of Lord Ernest Villiers and Lady Maude Percy be otherwise? She had still the same snowy skin of her infancy, softly and brightly tinged with the most delicate pink on the rounded cheeks; her face was perfectly oval, and almost transparent; her eyes were of the deepest, darkest violet hue; her long curls, that reached nearly to her waist, were like burnished gold, and the snow-white forehead and tapering limbs were perfect. In spite of the difference between them, though one was dark and impetuous, the other fair and gentle, yet there was a resemblance between Raymond and Erminie. You could see it most plainly when they smiled; it was the smile of Lady Maude that lit up both faces with that strange, nameless beauty.