"Oh yes, indeed I am!" cried Kate, who had never plucked up courage to give a horse an apple or a lump of sugar, and whose nearest approach to one was a drive with Joe behind old Bessie.
"You and Joseph can have a good gallop to-morrow, then. Kenyon tells me Gypsy Queen needs riding, so perhaps she'll be spirited enough for you, but don't tell me that you're such a sportswoman that you ride astride."
"No, indeed, I don't; in fact I don't"
"A more ridiculous exhibition I can't imagine. They say it's less dangerous and tires them less. As if there weren't worse things than exhaustion or falling off a horse!"
"Well, I don't"
"I was famous for my riding when I was a girl, and I should as soon have thought of riding on my head as riding astride."
Harcourt murmured in Kate's ear, and she answered, haughtily:
"Yes, please."
"I said red or white wine, madam?"
With head high, drooping lids, and lips that hardly opened, she chose red.
"I hear that that Mrs. Martine rides astride. I shouldn't be at all surprised. She looks very coarse."
Dear, intelligent Aunt Sarah! Dear Carrie, not so intelligent, but even dearer, moaning: "Oh yes, I'm
