Sally and Uncle John took Dick Torrington home to dinner; and Henrietta very nearly monopolized his attention, as might have been expected. It was late, as the habits of the Hazens went, when they went up to bed, but Henrietta would have Sally come in for a few minutes. She had so many things to say. No, they wouldn't wait. She would have forgotten them by the next day. And Sally laughed and went with Henrietta.
Henrietta's few minutes had lengthened to half an hour and she had not said half the things she had meant to say. She had told Sally how Mr. Spencer—Eugene Spencer, you know—had overtaken them at the head of the course and had accosted Mr. Torrington, challenging him to race.
"Mr. Spencer," continued Henrietta, with a demure glance at Sally, "seemed out of sorts and distinctly cross. I'm sure I don't know why. Do you, Sally?"
Sally looked annoyed. "He is very apt to be, I think," she remarked briefly. "What did Dick do? He said he was not going to race."
"Yes, that's what he told Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Spencer said, in a disagreeable kind of way, 'You promised Sally, I suppose.' And Dick—Mr. Torrington—smiled and his eyes wrinkled. I think he was laughing at Mr. Spencer—at the pet he was in. Don't you, Sally?"
Sally nodded. She thought it very likely.
"And Dick—I must ask Mr. Torrington's pardon, but I hear him spoken of as Dick so often that I forget—Mr. Torrington told him, in his slow, quiet way, that he hadn't exactly promised you; that, in fact, he had warned you that his horse was spirited and somewhat fractious and he might not be able to hold him. He had warned somebody, anyway, and he thought it was you. It wasn't you, at all, Sally. It was I, but I didn't enlighten him."
"I knew, very well, that he would," Sally observed. "So he raced with Jane?"
"With Mr. Spencer," Henrietta corrected. "Do you call him Jane? How funny! And we beat him and he went off in a shocking temper, for Dick laughed at him, but very gently."
"I'm not sure that would not be all the harder for Jane. I suppose you were glad to beat him."