"'Who won't let you?'
"'O, the Earl. He gives the races, you know, and is a perfect dragon about them.'
"'I can't offer my own services,' Satterlee went on, 'for you know you wouldn't have me.'
"The Burtons all smiled at this, and Dick explained to me: 'I was on a horse of Miss Burton's a year or two ago, and didn't want to put him over a horrid rough gully; but she, on the farther side, cried out, "Let him break his knees if he is so clumsy," and so he did.'
"'It was your fault, though,' the frank young lady answered.
"I remember that at the end of the meat the servants rose and bowed to their master, he acknowledging the courtesy sitting. Then we did the same, and all went to the other room. After half an hour's talk round old Mr. Burton's chair, a peal of bells sounded in some distant part of the house, to my intense surprise, and we thereupon marched off down a long, long corridor to I could not imagine what. Satterlee whispered, 'Philip Burton is in orders,—this is Even-Song,' just as we entered a little chapel. There were kneeling-chairs for all, and the beautiful Burton heads sank devoutly upon them. It was a choral service, Lillie playing a small organ, and Philip chanting with the family and servants.
"As we went out, old Mr. Burton wished each good night; then some one showed me where my room was, and I found myself alone. I was really confused. Where was I, and what had I been doing? Did all the people in this part of the country have such strange ways? I looked at my watch, and found it was but just nine o'clock, and yet I seemed to have lived years since the morning. The evening service, so beautifully sung, had quite upset me. It was months since I had been in a church, and this had come so unexpectedly,—the dim light, the low, peculiar voices, the simple fervor. I began to think Darrow was a dream from beginning to end, when Satterlee put his head in at the door with a grin, and said, 'Well, how is my Gerry?'
"'A little dazed,' I answered; 'but come in, man, and prepare me for the morning.'
"'No,' he whispered, 'not allowable. Bedtime is bedtime here. Good night.'
"I went to bed in self-defence, and half dreamed, half thought, of horses, and choral services, and golden heads, until sound sleep came to my relief. It could not have been more than seven o'clock when I awoke, and yet on going to the window it was evident that the inhabitants of Darrow had been long up and about, for the farm-yard was in order for the day, the carts gone a-field, and the cattle-sheds empty. George and Philip Burton were busily engaged near the barn door, the one in turning a grindstone, the other in sharpening an axe; and from the barn itself came the melodious voices of Lillie and her brother Jack. Presently they came out, she leading a long-legged horse which I immediately recognized as answering to the description of the colt. He was of a dull gray color, and at the first glance I set him down as about the ugliest horse I had ever seen, his only good points being a very decent chest, and striding hind-legs of extraordinary length and muscle; otherwise he was utterly commonplace. But evidently there was some great fascination in the beast, for the four Burtons gathered round him and looked him over with that anxious scrutiny we always display when examining our horses, then patted him admiringly, and, as I judged from the expression of their faces, were well pleased with his morning looks.