“Why,” said Henry, with a troubled look, “your aunt and cousin went riding! Full an hour ago! Yes, sir, they left about eleven o’clock. They says they was going to get back about half-past two.”
“Idiots!” said the colonel, contemptuously. “Riding! A day like this! Where’d they go?”
“They says they’d go as far as Holly Hill, colonel, and then have their meal at the spring, an’ then go right over Baldy, and home!”
“Crazy! Climbin’ the hill in this heat!” She looked about the clean, wide stable. “What horses did you give ’em?”
Henry looked very uncomfortable.
“I thought you knew, colonel. I give your aunt Sixpence—he’s up to her weight. But Miss Rose says she was to ride your horse.”
The colonel whirled about, her eyes flashing. “Rose said—my horse! You don’t mean Baby?”
“That’s what she says.”
Jerry turned white.
“But—my goodness! Baby’s sick! The vet said she wasn’t to be ridden!”