"One, two, three, JUMP!"
Connie jumped. Unluckily the mare jumped also, and Connie landed back into a puddle sending a shower of water over Godfrey's perfect breeches.
"Oh, Connie, give it up. Don't make a fool of yourself," whispered Muriel. Then she remembered her own school-days, and the rock. "Look how you are splashing poor Mr. Neale."
"That's all right," said Godfrey heroically. After all it was the Hammond girl who was making a fool of herself, not he. "Now then, we'll try again."
Connie jumped. A strong hand seemed to lift her up, up into the cold clear air. She jumped with such a will that she almost seemed to fall on to the other side of the mare, but not quite. There she was, mounted at last, while Godfrey Neale placed her muddy boot in the stirrup, and Clare arranged her short serge skirt.
"Ah, now that is excellent," said Clare. "Hold the reins so, and press your left knee well against the pommel. Sit square and face the horse's head."
"You and your horse's head!" laughed Connie. "You talk as though I'd never been up before."
But for all her defiant gaiety, she felt that indeed she hardly had. Golden Girl was different from the old, lop-lobbing pony. When she thrust down her disquieting head, there seemed to be little enough between Connie and the gravel drive. Still there she was. She looked patronizingly down at the group below, at Mrs. Neale, grimly amused, at Clare laughing back at her, at Muriel, white-faced and anxious.
"I'm ready," she said.
They began to walk sedately down the drive. Now that Golden Girl was actually moving, Connie found it less alarming. Indeed, she told herself, it was good beyond all dreams of goodness. The great house gaped at her from a score of long, blank windows. On the steps stood Clare, now only a spectator in the drama, and by the side of the mare walked Godfrey Neale, Connie's companion for as long as she could keep the mare's head turned away from the house down the long drive.