The Floor of Heaven

I

THE breakfast-table had been drawn into the bow window to catch all that was possible of the pale December sunlight. Its three occupants were doing themselves well, knowing that a long day lay ahead of them, and that the prospect of any lunch, save the cold bacon sandwiches which their saddle-boxes would contain, was practically negligible. The three of them were in riding clothes: Philip Colford’s a rather heterogeneous collection, consisting of field-boots, khaki breeches, a worstedembroidered waistcoat, tweed coat, and an ascot, which accentuated rather than concealed the heavy lines of his jowl and neck. His twin daughters, Laura and Phyllis, were in neat black habits, which showed evidence of service.

Seen together, the two girls were easily distinguishable; apart, their likeness was sufficient to cause confusion. As little children, it had been more arresting; but now, with two decades behind them, personality and character were beginning to stamp themselves on the delicate features and blond prettiness, making an intangible difference. Laura gave a curiously combined effect of greater vitality and less staying power — qualities which would have been determined by physique had a young hunter been up for inspection, but which in a girl were recognizable only in expression and manner. Phyllis, in contrast, appeared more sober, less brilliant; what was really a dawning sense of the responsibilities of life was best summed up in her father’s definition of his daughters to a friend: —

‘If I were goin’ in for show horses I’d buy that filly [indicating Laura], and guarantee to beat any horse in the Garden; but for a day with hounds in open country, I ’d choose her sister.'

At breakfast, as usual, except when the unpleasant topic of home economics was under discussion, the Colford family talked horses and hunting. The season had opened auspiciously and the girls, limited to one horse apiece, would be put to it to find mounts for the three days a week that the Leith County Hunt offered. Philip, who rode unbelievably vicious horses and sold them as soon as he had mastered them, — granted, of course, that that occurred before he killed them, — was always supplied. Until Christmas, both Laura and Phyllis knew they would be the frequent recipients of borrowed steeds; they were admirable horsewomen, and either a friend who was long on horses, or a dealer who wanted to offer well-broken ladies’ hunters to the Northern market, was eager to mount them. But with the holidays, when a hard frost might destroy the hunting from Massachusetts to Maryland, there would be an influx of visitors ready to job or to buy horses, and the Colford girls would be forced to conserve their resources, Brown Betty and Minoru.

‘It’s one of the real tragedies of life,’ Laura said, ‘that during the cubbing season and the six weeks before Christmas, Phyllis and I could be mounted six times a week; but when the real fun begins, it’s all we can do to get two days out of our own hacks.’

‘They ought not to be asked for more than three times a fortnight,’ Phyllis put in; ‘and it ’s particularly bad luck this year, because with the Worship Valley Hounds coming down for January, there ’ll be better sport than ever, and so many people to buy horses we won’t have a look-in.’

‘Is it decided they ’re coming?’ Laura asked with sudden animation.

‘It ’s decided all right,’ her father answered. ‘They’d had instructions at the kennels yesterday, and their Master’s written Gee-Gee.’

Gee-Gee was their own beloved M.F.H., so nicknamed from the initials which his name, George Grahm, contributed, as well as from his profession.

The twins looked at each other — swift, pregnant glances. Laura’s conveyed: ‘Then he is coming back!’ and Phyllis’s answered: ‘Go in and win, old dear — if yon can.'

There was to be no quarter — asked or given.

‘They ’ll be here for the Hunt Ball, then,’ Laura offered, as a remark which required confirmation.

‘I reckon so,’ Philip said. ‘Gee-Gee tells me that he’s put it off from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s night, to make certain. That reminds me,’ he added, with a certain elaboration of expression which betrayed the fact that he had never forgotten, ‘I ve got somethin’ for you-all.’

He produced from the inside pocket of his coat a voluminous and bulging wallet, which contained always a great many things that are not intended to be carried in wallets, and very little, usually, of what is. This time, however, he took from it two one-hundred-dollar bills, and tossed them carelessly across the table.

‘Pip — you darling,’ Laura grabbed her share, and had both arms round his neck. ‘You darling old darling!’ she continued rapturously in his ear.

Phyllis remained in her seat, her eyes brooding on the green note on the white tablecloth. Suddenly she raised them to meet her father’s.

‘ I suppose an outsider won,’ she said. He nodded, his mouth buttoned in to render his opinion of himself less obvious. He looked, Phyllis thought, with his handsome, weak face, very like an adult Jack Horner.

‘Decent odds?’ she asked casually: ‘five to one?’

He loosened his lips to allow ‘six’ to escape from them.

‘Here’s two hundred,’ Phyllis continued, ‘and I reckon you’ve paid GeeGee what you lost, at Fryeville: that ought to leave another couple of hundred to straighten things out here.’

‘ And where do I come in?’ Philip demanded, his mouth relaxing into an obstinate smile. ‘Doesn’t your poor old daddy get anything out of this? I spotted that chestnut of Longstreet’s when he was a yearling, and I had the courage to back him in his first race; now I’m savin’ a bit of this pot if he starts at Uniontown.’

‘ It’s a brilliant idea,’ Phyllis — a little tired and contemptuous of her father’s gambling proclivities — answered; ‘only we happen to owe the money.’

‘ I reckon we owe a damn sight more than this pittance.’ Colford was approaching anger. ‘If I win anything at Uniontown, we ’ll pay’m off and start fresh; if I lose, I ’ll go without, and they can go without, too, damn ’em!’

‘ I don’t mind the tradespeople,’ Phyllis went on wearily: ‘they can attach the property again if it comes to that; but it’s a little hard on Dun’l and the house servants. They have n’t seen cash for months.’

‘Well, neither have I,’ her father responded, his good humor suddenly restored; ‘neither has Laura; have you, Baby ? ’

Thus appealed to, Laura, nearer her infancy than Phyllis by twenty-seven minutes, flew to his defense.

‘You ’re so ungrateful,’ she said to her sister. ‘Pip divided it all beautifully, and you don’t even thank him for your share.’

‘I thank him,’ answered her twin, ‘ for everything he gives me — that’s his to give.’

‘I won it, did n’t I,’ Philip retorted, ‘and I ’ve given it to you. Now, if you choose to pay Ca’line and Dan’l, you ’re welcome to make that hundred go as far as you can.’

‘Yes,’ said his daughter, securing the bill and thrusting it into the pocket of her habit, ‘ I’m going to.’

She got up from the table and proceeded to the sideboard, where she began to cut the bread for their lunchboxes.

Philip contemplated her back for a moment; then, with a characteristic little shrug of his shoulders, he, too, rose from the table, announcing as he left the room: —

‘ I’m goin’ down to help Dan’l saddle. Remember we’ve got a five-mile road hack and the meet’s at ten.’

Laura kissed her hand to him, but remained seated on the arm of his chair, where her demonstrations had landed her. When he was out of earshot she addressed her sister.

‘Phyllis! You did n’t mean it?’

‘Mean what?’

‘You won’t give your hundred to Ca’line and Dan’l?’

Phyllis turned and faced her.

‘I certainly will,’ she said. ‘It’s no more Daddy’s to give to us, when he owes money to every single soul on this place, than the mare I ’m riding to-day is mine.’

‘ Do you expect me to give mine, too? Laura questioned, in a dangerously quiet voice.

‘I hope you will.'

How desperately she hoped it, only Phyllis knew. Not only would she, as housekeeper, welcome the money to pay the patient servants, but she wanted Laura to feel — to prove that she felt — that it was theirs.

‘Well, I ’m not going to,’Laura answered, in the same quiet tone, drawling her words a little. ‘I ’m going into town to buy me a whole cloth-of-silver dress and some silver shoes and stockings and a little fillet of rhinestones for the Leith County Hunt Ball; and,’here her voice broke and became loud and quick, ' if you ’re not a skunk, you ’ll do it, too!’

Only the manner in which Phyllis returned to her manipulation of the bread-knife implied that she had taken this insult to heart. Laura, who knew her, who knew her silences, realized that an explanation was awaited.

‘We ’ve always dressed alike,’ she said, ‘and what sort of figures shall we cut, do you think, if I have a new dress and you turn up in that filthy black rag we’ve worn for the last two years? O Phil, please be human just this once; there ’ll be all these strangers at the ball, and we do want to look nice,— really nice, — like the women they see in New York and Philadelphia; not just two fresh-faced country girls, whom they can’t imagine any place out of Leith County. Please, Phyllis darling, let ’s look nice just this once!'

She was almost crying in her eagerness, her lovely little face flushed with the intensity of her feelings, her eyes dark with tears which awaited their shedding for her twin’s answer.

Phyllis delayed it for a moment, then she said soberly: —

‘I won’t take Dan’l’s money for a silver dress; but I ’m perfectly willing not to go to the ball, Lolly, if you think that, without it, I’d detract from your effect.’

‘ I ’m not asking you to give up the ball,’ Laura rejoined; ‘only not to wear that awful black again.’

‘And as I haven’t anything else to wear, you might just as well ask me not to go. I see your point perfectly, and I entirely agree with you that we had better both wear black, or one of us go in silver.’

‘I suppose you think I m a pig,’ Laura said, ‘and I reckon I am; but one ’s got to look out for one’s self in this world, and it may never happen to me again that I have the money and the ball in the same month. I’d almost steal the money to get a new dress.’

‘Then for heaven’s sake get it!’ said Phyllis, wishing Laura would clear out. It was much easier to make a sacrifice, she thought, than to be pleasant about it afterwards.

Her sister offered a few more remonstrances, but, meeting no response or encouragement, drifted out of the room.

II

Phyllis, having cut sufficient bread for six lunch-boxes, began the sandwiches. Her heart was very heavy, partly with young sorrow for her disappointment over the ball, and partly with old grief for Laura’s willingness to accept her sacrifice. Her mind revolved in little circles between the two; but she continued to work swiftly, and she was conscious that she was listening with a small, detached part of her mind to the words of a song the two colored maids were singing in the kitchen.

The cook, in deep, pleasant contralto, and in very free verse, was repeating the story of Elijah, working up to a chorus in which Caroline joined her, which announced and reiterated that —

In turn, Ca’line sang the history of Daniel and the lions, and in the ensuing chorus the cook proved positively that —

Then, suddenly, as if all the intermediate history of the world was of slight import, they reported in unison, —

Phyllis had loved this song from childhood; and even now the primitive rhythm and fervent, rendition brought her some measure of solace and amusement.

Having packed up her sandwiches, she gathered up the boxes, together with gloves and crop, and proceeded to the stables. Laura and her father were already mounted; they accepted her contribution, and slipped the tin containers into the leather cases that were fastened to their saddles; but, except for a word of thanks, they made no effort to speak to her, and Phyllis concluded that Laura had enlisted sympathy. She turned to look critically at her borrowed mount — a keen, little mare that she had ridden before, and would gladly have bought for herself had the Colford finances warranted the purchase of any horses in which Philip could not see a swift and certain profit. She loosened the chin-strap, which Daniel always would pull too tight, and made various futile adjustments, hoping that her father and sister would take the opportunity to slip off without her.

Philip called, ‘We ’ll start along, you can catch us,’ and hardly waited for her nod of agreement.

Daniel, the sixty-year-old stable ‘boy,’ put her up, giving her a fluent biography of her beloved Minoru for the past twenty-four hours,

‘I ’ll see him when I get in,’ she said, ‘and see you treat him well. I ’ve got a month’s wages for you in this pocket, and you ’ll stand a poor chance of getting it if Minoru is n’t fit.’

‘Dat suttenly am fine news, Miss Phil,’ Daniel answered. ‘Ah got a opportunity foh a first-class investment , if ah can obtain de captilization.’

‘That means you ’re going shares in a horse again,’ said Phyllis with some severity, not at all deceived by the high-flown language. It struck her as doubly cruel that the proceeds of her sacrifice should go for a negro’s gamble. ‘But, after all, it is his money,’ she thought; ‘only I do wish I could get it changed quickly and divided between Dan’l and Ca’line.’

She kept purposely behind her family during the long hack to the Forge Crossing, where the hounds were meeting. There was a phase of the situation existing between Laura and herself which she had not yet considered; but, although she was reluctant to meet it, she was accustomed to ride straight and to face her fences squarely.

The year before, when a few straggling members of the Worship Valley Hunt had discovered Leith County, the most enthusiastic and attractive of their number had been Warren Arnold. Both by his horsemanship, which was noticeable even in a community of good horsemen, and by his charm, which was distinguishable among a people whose charm was their major asset, he had become the most popular stranger who had hunted the County for years. Golden things were said of him, of his position, his wealth, his increasing importance among men of affairs; but, in the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the Leith County Hunt, these things counted for far less than his own personality.

He had become a warm friend of the Colford twins, and had the romantic and impulsive neighborhood ever been able to determine which one he liked the better, there would have been plenty of kindly, well-intentioned gossip flying about before he had returned North. Even the twins themselves had never decided which of them he preferred. They had admitted freely to each other, in those days of unguarded intimacy, that he was the only man they could ever, ever love; but their feeling for him had never interrupted the pleasant routine or the healthy enjoyment of their lives. They had been almost always together on the occasions when they saw him, either hunting, or, after a day with hounds, when he came home for tea with them, or at a dance or dinner at a neighbor’s house. After he had left, he had written them both — friendly, amusing letters, equally free from sentiment. Yet in the heart of each was a conviction that it was she whom he more nearly more than liked.

The twins had ‘hunted in couples’ always; but Laura had this morning chosen her own line and the old partnership was dissolved. Slim and tall in the silver frock, she would greet him on the night of his arrival at the Hunt Ball, while Phyllis sat at home alone — a Cinderella, without a godmother, pitted against Diana.

She was too normal, too keen an enthusiast, to let her thoughts interfere with her day’s sport once she arrived at the Forge Crossing. The little mare carried her easily, and she and Laura were soon in happy rivalry in the field. But in the days that followed, when her bank note had been divided and the halves swallowed in the black palms of Caroline and Daniel, it was not always easy to discuss with Laura the relative merits of silver cloth and crêpe météore, a bandeau in Greek-key design and a wreath of stephanotis. However, she succeeded in playing up, evolving the philosophy that what is given grudgingly is better withheld.

III

The day of the New Year dawned fair and cold. Phyllis and Laura spent the morning about the stables, giving Brown Betty and Minoru, who would be called on for a hard day to-morrow, a little gentle exercise and a great deal of petting. They put their tack in the best possible condition, and impressed upon Daniel the importance of their being well turned out for their first day with the Worship Valley Hounds, which had been imported by invitation to hunt the County.

They lunched alone, as Philip was at the Kennels with Gee-Gee and the visiting Master; and afterward Laura went upstairs to rest, preparatory to the evening’s festivities. Phyllis put out the ingredients she knew her father would demand when he returned, with several of his cronies, for one of his famous eggnogs, laid out his evening clothes, — for, in spite of his good looks, Philip never cared in the least what he put on, and would appear a regular rag-bag were it not for the ministrations of his daughters, — and curled herself up before the library fire with a book.

She may have read a chapter, she may have dozed a bit, she may have done both, before Caroline presented a grinning face at the door and announced: —

‘Tha’s a gemman here, honey.’

Before Phyllis could straighten herself out, Warren Arnold was in the room.

How enchanting he was! When a girl of nineteen idealizes a man, he is cruelly apt to disappoint her at twenty; but Warren was exactly as she had visualized him all these months.

‘I’ve popped in for only a moment,’ he said. ‘ I must have a look at my nags before dark, and I’ve only just arrived. I wanted to know if you would have supper with me to-night at the party.’

For a moment Phyllis hesitated. She was wondering what would happen if she should put on the old black dress and go to the ball; and she was wondering whether, if Warren had found Laura curled up before the fire alone, he would have asked her the same question.

‘1 ’m not going to the party,’ she answered at last. ’I’ve been rather done in lately, and I ’m conserving all my energy for to-morrow.’

Whether he would have asked Laura or not, his face expressed genuine regret.

‘I am sorry,’ he said; ‘sorry you ’re not going and particularly if you ’re not fit. You look as right as rain.'

‘Oh, I’m quite all right,’ she responded. ‘I’ll prove it to-morrow, when I leave you all at the first fence. Laura ’ll have her innings to-night, but to-morrow’s mine.’

‘ To him who hath,’ he quoted. ' I’ve got to-day, and I ’m going to have to-morrow, too. Give Laura my love, and tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her like anything.’

He said good-bye to her and started to go out, but returned suddenly and added in a concerned voice, ‘ You really are all right?’

‘Right as rain,’ she repeated, with her happiest smile.

This time he did depart.

Caroline and Phyllis helped Laura dress. The former was loud in her appreciation of the flowerlike beauty that blossomed under her hands, and vehement in her criticisms of her assistant.

‘Wha’s de sense in yo’-all stayin’ home like pore black trash?’ she demanded. ‘Wha’s yo’ angel dress an’ dem shiny business foh yo’ ha’r? All dis nonsense wid ho’ses knock yo’ clean silly.’

‘ Well, Laura rides, too, you know,’ Phyllis protested meekly.

' Don interfere wid her sense none,’ Caroline retorted. ‘Don’ interfere wid her settin’ her cap for a husban’, does it?’

Laura giggled, which prevented a couple of hooks from being adjusted for a moment. These done, Caroline remained on her knees to worship.

‘Yo’ suttenly am a witness foh de Lo’d dis night, chile,’ she said, with something very near reverence in her voice, ‘ Yo’ stay jest like dat till ah call Cook.’

Cook and Philip arrived together, from their respective quarters. They were equally complimentary, and Phyllis added generously: —

‘I ’m very proud of my family; you ’re both beautiful.’

Her father turned to her in the hall, where she was helping him with his overcoat, and said suddenly: —

‘ You ’re a good girl, Phil. God bless you!’ the futile, facile tears of a weak man suffusing his eyes.

Laura said: ‘Phil, I can’t bear it, leaving you like this’; but she did bear it, and departed with her father.

Five hours later found her sitting on Phyllis’s bed, reciting the triumphs of the evening. Everyone had been wonderful, everything had been perfect, except the absence of her twin.

‘They ’re some awfully nice men,’ she said. ‘The Master’s an old duck, and there were three or four women who seemed rather dears. Warren introduced me to everyone, and we had supper together on the stairs. A friend of his joined us, — a man named Winston, — who danced with me a lot. He asked in fun if there were any more at home like me, and when I said there was — one — just exactly, he wanted to know all about you and why you had n’t come; so, when Warren said you were ill, I — I told them the real story. You don’t mind, do you, Phil?’

‘It doesn’t make much difference whether I mind or not,’ Phyllis answered, ‘and it does n’t matter much, I suppose — everyone round knows we ’re poor as Job’s turkey. It’s only a question of taste how much you like to talk about it .’

She did not mean her voice to sound sharp, but she had been wrested from her first hard-won sleep by Laura’s enthusiastic entrance, and it seemed a trifle unnecessary that her sordid little sacrifice should be used as copy for the supper-party from which it had debarred her.

‘To-morrow’s mine,' she thought to herself over and over again, when Laura left her. She had been saving up Minoru for her first day with the Worship Valley Hounds; and knowing the pluck and ability of her little horse, she knew that no country and no pace could dismay her.

IV

Daniel shuffled in when the Colfords were gathered at a late and hurried breakfast, his seamed old face and stupid, devoted eyes exuding trouble.

‘Miss Phil! Minoru’s done gone an’ lamed hisself — cast hisself las’ night and can’t put His off hin’ fut to the groun’.’

‘Minoru!’ There followed questions, explanations, and a breathless trip to the stable.

Philip, who knew horses as he knew little else, pronounced the final judgment — his hand on the feverish hock, his eyes full of real feeling: a horse and his girl were suffering equally.

‘Wrenched a tendon: he’ll be all right, Phil, but you ’ll have to lay him up for a bit.’

Phyllis put her arms around the horse’s neck and hid her face against it. She wished that her father would not feel obliged to put a heavy arm about her shoulders, and that Laura’s voice would stop reiterating: —

‘She can ride Brown Betty; she ’ll have my horse; Dan’l, put Miss Phil’s saddle on the mare.’

She shook off the arm and turned to them.

‘No, I won’t ride Brown Betty. Thanks, Laura; I know you want me to, but I’d rather not.’

‘There’s nothing of mine,’ her father said miserably, ‘that I could put you on, or you’d be welcome to the lot — you know that.’

She knew: knew that, if it were possible, he would impetuously sacrifice the whole string, which represented his entire working capital, to provide her with a decent mount. But it was not possible, and she did not want to talk; fate — destiny — wanted her to suffer, and she would deliver herself bound and gagged.

‘Hurry up, you two, or you ’ll be late,’ she said; ‘one day’s hunting more or less does n’t matter. It’s only I’m so damned sorry about Minoru.’

Her voice broke, betraying the spirit that had forced the expletive — an annoying break that brought renewed persuasions from Laura and heavy caresses from her father.

Only Daniel, the dumb, stricken look in his eyes, — eyes like Minoru’s, — seemed to understand and hurry the preparations that would ensure a swift departure of the unwanted comforters. It was a relief to Phyllis when they hacked out of the stable-yard, her father’s distress and Laura’s protests dying in the January air. It was a relief to help Daniel prepare and administer a cold-water bandage to the injured tendon. But when she rose from the straw of the box, and viewed the habit that she had cleaned and pressed with the purpose of looking so smart, all wrinkled and covered with bits of bedding, the thought came to her, and the tears with it: ‘My day — this is my day!’

She went out in the stable-yard and stood on the granite tiles, leaning against the door of Minoru’s box. It was a big yard, for the formation of the stalls and the coach-house made a court, and in her grandfather’s time the stable had held thirty horses. Now the left wing, which had housed the mares and foals, and the big coach-house had fallen almost to decay; for Philip Colford only made a pretense of keeping up the right wing for his own hunters, Brown Betty, Minoru, and the tackroom.

Phyllis stood there, cold, disheveled, miserable, yet knowing that the return to the house could only improve her physical comfort, which her young stoicism refused to tolerate.

Suddenly Daniel appeared beside her.

‘Miss Phil,’ he said, ‘ what yo’-all say to ridin’ Pollyanna?’

‘ Pollyanna? ’

‘Ma horse,’ he explained proudly. ‘Leastways mine an’ the boys. Bought her down to Fryeville in the sellin’ plate — hain’t been hunted none, but she’s a mighty likely little mare.’

He shuffled across to the dilapidated box that had once housed Romany Girl, mother of the great Gypsy King. Phyllis, wondering, followed across the court, and saw him lead forth by a rope halter the little bay mare he called Pollyanna. She knew the negroes were always gambling on horses; that they frequently formed a pool to buy cheap young selling platers, hoping that, if they failed on the track, they might bring in a small profit as hunters. But the quality of the little mare surprised her, though it was obvious why she had fallen into these hands; she was too light of bone to sustain speed on the track, or to support weight in the field — a rangy, ill-kempt little creature; but her breeding was evident — a mistaken progeny from some famous strain.

Daniel went over her points lovingly, adding: —

’Hain’t been jumped much, Miss Phil, but ah reckon yo’-all’s so dumb miserable you would n’t have no quarrel with a fall.’

Phyllis thought : ‘This is my day — I take what the gods provide,’ and said aloud: ‘ Bring my saddle; we ’ve got to hurry like lightning.”

The mare had never known a double bridle, and resented it hotly; she resented, too, the slim attempt that was made to groom her; and, most of all, she objected to finding Phyllis on her back.

‘Ma Gawd, what’s dis ole nigger gone an’ done now?’ Daniel found himself saying aloud, as Phyllis and the mare shot out of the stable-yard. ‘ Why can’t ah keep my mouf shut an’ not go makin’ offertory’s o’ no-’count nigger’s horses ? ’

He was in for a bad day with not only the safety of his adored Miss Phil to worry him, but also the wrath of the joint owners of Pollyanna, should harm come to her.

Phyllis had need of all her wit to control the mare; strength was of secondary importance, but it promised to be no easy matter to teach Pollyanna, in the six miles which lay between her and the hounds, that she was in lighter, firmer, more exacting hands than those of the half-grown colored boys who had galloped her on the track.

Gee-Gee had offered the Worship Valley’ Hounds his best covert for their first day’s hunting in Leith County. They would meet at Farwell’s Corner; but Phyllis knew that her only chance of joining the field lay in picking them up after the hounds had gone into cover, but before they found; or, should the fox break at once in anticipating his line and in keeping well away from it, in waiting until the hounds passed her. With this in mind, it was necessary to ride the last couple of miles, before she could come in view of Farwell’s Woods, cross-country.

The little mare, who had proved fairly tractable on the road, became restive directly she felt the grass beneath her feet; and Phyllis, for the first time, became conscious of what a tremendous undertaking lay ahead of her in attempting to manage so green a hunter in a crowded field. For her own safety she was not at all concerned, — even a nasty spill was preferable to a day at home alone, — but she knew that she had no business projecting Pollyanna into the thick of the other riders. There was one chance in a thousand, if the little horse could jump, that she could keep up with the very first flight; otherwise she would have to hold back with the local farmers and colored boys, who flocked to the meet on any equine specimen which could carry them there, and were lost forever with the initial gallop behind hounds.

Pollyanna’s performance over the first fence encouraged her; her form left much to be desired, indeed almost left Phyllis the participant of a strangely misnamed ‘voluntary’; but she cleared the barway easily. They went better after that, the desire to be over that fence together had established a common purpose between the two, and the adjoining fields were traversed so pleasantly that Phyllis’s spirit soared. A couple of walls, which lay between her and the far side of the woods, were sufficient to prove the metal of Daniel’s gamble: she was quivering and white with lather once they were behind her, but she had learned to trust the light hands, which gave her her head whenever a barrier lay between her and the Elysian field beyond. Landed, she must perform a bit, show what else she could do, sidle along with her head turned clear around, stand with equal dexterity on fore or hind legs, kick out like a Russian dancer, or do a very creditable imitation of the modern Jazz; but here the firm hands never relaxed their control, nor did the soft voice falter in its loving, appreciative monologue; and after a few rods it was more comfortable to settle into the narrow, straight path that hands and voice approved.

V

It had taken Phyllis longer to cover the six miles to Farwell’s Woods than she had expected. As she approached, she could hear the hounds in covert and recognize the voices of a strange pack working toward her. It was hard to hold Pollyanna in the corner of the field she had chosen for herself — chosen because, should the fox break, she stood no possible chance of crossing his line unless he should decide to double back into the woods, in which case it was highly to be desired. The filly danced incessantly: this new music pleased her, she had steps to suit it; also, it occurred to her that she could do them better without the present incumbent on her back — ridiculous to confine one’s self to a corner, with the ballroom of the world free to dance upon.

Something soft and red stole out of Farwell’s Woods. Then, disliking the prospect of those smiling fields, loath to exchange them for the dark security of his own earth, the fox, running along the edge for a bit, doubling in his own track to deceive the hounds, who were well behind him, suddenly caught sight of Phyllis and changed his mind. The woods were full of enemies; better to trust the open country and his own active legs. He turned sharply and set out for the horizon.

Pollyanna heard the soft voice break, and an amazing ’Tallyho’ was thrown against that other volume of approaching sound.

Other noises intervened — the crackling and breaking of underbrush; some heavy body being forced against resisting bushes and branches, which resented this disturbance of their long winter’s nap; a horse’s hoofs snapping dead wood that lay in his path and interfering with the disintegrating process of fallen leaves; an expressive ‘damn!’ as some twig smote the rider.

Warren Arnold, emerging from the woods, immaculate in the attire of a Worship Valley whip, save for a slight abrasion above his left eye, put his horse neatly at the wall and joined Phyllis.

‘Who said “Tallyho”?’ he demanded, with no preliminaries.

‘I did,’ she answered, trying to keep Pollyanna within speaking distance; ‘ the fox came out by that big chestnut tree, tried to double back, could n’t, and went away over the hill there.’

‘We ’ll wait here,’ he said. ‘The hounds picked it up cold and are way behind him.’

His big, clean-bred bay was in admirable control; he sat, as if carved in marble, waiting for the hounds to break covert and pick up the thread of scent that unwound from the fleeing fox. Phyllis felt, that his eyes were occasionally upon her, that he had taken in every detail of her weedy little nag and her own appearance, which had not been improved by the difficulties of the morning. Excepting the little cut over his eye, Warren, in his pink coat with the velvet collar of the Worship Valley color, his white breeches and well-boned boots, might just as conceivably have emerged from a bandbox as from Farwell’s Woods. He presented as distinct a contrast to Phyllis as his beautifully groomed and glossy Top Form did to Pollyanna.

The hounds, well packed, scrambled over the wall, singing their glorious processional, which turned into a series of dismayed questionings where the fox had crossed his own line.

‘Whip ’em on to it, Phil, you ’ve got a lash,’ Warren commanded, trying to ride off the lead hounds himself.

It was all that Phyllis could do, however, to manage Pollyanna, who, at the sight of those enchanting white objects roving at will through the pleasant meadow, was made more resentful of restraint than ever. When, with great yelps of joy, the hounds picked up the true trail, Phyllis was congratulating herself that she had remained mounted, less because she anticipated the run than because it occurred to her how hideously bored Warren would be if, at this enthralling moment, some mischance befalling her should demand his attention. She loved his concentration on the game he was playing, his oblivion as to who or what she might be, once granting her an enthusiasm as keen as his own.

They waited for a moment, careful not to crowd the hounds. Warren said, breathless with excitement, —

‘The field must, be hung up somewhere. I believe we ’re going to have this alone’; and they were off at a gallop.

Whatever Pollyanna knew of foxhunting must have been bred in her. Perhaps her mother had in her day gone well and wisely, and standing, heavy, at the pasture-bars, had heard the hounds, and her quickening blood had imparted some knowledge to the foal within her. Phyllis felt an added thrill as she became conscious of the long, easy motion which carried her well up with Warren. Top Form gave her a lead at the first fence; but apparently his rider had turned to watch her take it, for she heard his commending, ‘Well over—I say, Phil, where did you get that horse?’ But the pace was too swift to render an answer necessary.

The fox was making for a distant warren, and a long stretch of open country lay between him and his goal. Phyllis knew this run well; knew, too, the barriers which must be overcome by anyone who chose to ride it. The blight that had devastated the chestnut trees some years previously had led the more enterprising farmers to conserve as much of their wood as possible in the form of fencing; and the cornfields and big pastures were bounded by stiff lines of post and rail. Had only Minoru been beneath her, her cup of happiness would have been overflowing; no other run in the country asked so much from a horse, and she doubted if all the nerve the little mare displayed could prove, in the light of her inexperience, equal to the demand upon her. And Phyllis was desperately anxious to go well; never again in a long life of hunting could she hope that the present opportunity would repeat itself. Often and often she might ride that country again; but the real joy of the immediate present lay in sharing the thrill with Warren, of doing the thing she liked best alone with him. It was an adventure to be courted valiantly; like all great adventures, to be wrested from life in the face of difficulties, and made so complete, so utterly satisfying, that no past or future bitterness could render it nugatory.

The checkerboard of fields, green with their crop of winter wheat or the gray-yellow of dead grass and cornstubble, stretched before them clear to the low-lying hills, where the fox was seeking his earth; and always a couple of fields behind him, the hounds sent up their pecan of praise to the lord of scent.

VI

In the meantime, the other riders, hung up by wire on the far side of Farwell’s Woods, were greatly wroth. No explanation is acceptable to a company of sportsmen who have heard hounds go away, and have been prevented from accompanying them by a nearly invisible but none the less fatally deterrent barrier. That the wire fence was new, and unmistakably set up by the owner of the covert, in redress for some ancient, grudge, placed Gee-Gee, trying to explain the situation to his guests, in a no more enviable position.

He had waited, expecting the fox to double into the woods again, not knowing of the chance encounter with Phyllis; nor had anyone followed Warren when he had ridden back to the Corner, hacked along the turnpike, and reëntered the woods on the other side of the wire. Even Laura, who was tempted, did not dare risk pursuing a whip in covert. For a moment, it appeared that the Master’s surmise was correct; the hounds could be heard in disagreement as to the line the fox had taken; then their music had become fainter through distance, proving that he had made the break for the open. There was no choice for the field but to follow ignominiously behind Gee-Gee and Philip Colford, who knew the country, hoping that some happy chance would bring them up with the hounds.

‘ I reckon the fox has gone clean away to Parson’s Folly,’ Laura told Winston. ‘It’s the best ride in the county, but the Hunt had a lawsuit with Farwell over some damages, and we have n’t drawn this covert since. However, the Farwell boys have been out a couple of times lately, and Gee-Gee thought everything was quite pleasant again.’

‘Where do we go from here?’ Winston asked, despondently, in spite of the popularized phrase that was his invariable form of wit.

The field regained the road and hacked smartly along; a man driving a Ford met them and gave information concerning the hounds: he had heard them a couple of miles beyond, headed for Parson’s Folly. It was possible, Grahm knew, by following the roadways and lanes which bounded the farmyards, almost to make up the distance; for the fox would choose the more circuitous route, to ensure avoiding human habitation.

The Master set a pace which was difficult to follow over the rutted surface of the country road, through narrow lanes, where the field, all eager to be abreast with him, crowded and interfered with each other; through farmyards, where strange half-bred dogs attacked them with canine cursings, and frightened fowl scuttled to safety with shrill expostulation. Old workhorses, put out to grass for the slim Southern season, when their services were valueless on the farm, galloped the length of a pasture with them, pretending, until arrested by the fence, that they, too, were of the hunt.

Eventually Gee-Gee left the farm covert behind and made for the long fertile valley. Over the fences there were the usual number of casualties, — refusals, a fall or two, whose participants could hardly expect to rejoin the field, — but for the most part the body of the two Hunts sailed serenely on, and were rewarded presently by a glimpse of Warren’s scarlet coat — a vivid blot of color against the monochrome of dead grass. He was more than a mile ahead of them, galloping steadily up the valley; but that they were gaining on him became apparent when, beside him, a small figure in black was discernible.

‘Who is it?’ Laura sacrificed her breath to ask of Winston. ' None of our people — everyone who could go this country is accounted for.’

‘No one I know,’ he answered. ‘It’s a woman, and there are only three of ours — all here.’

Philip shouted to his daughter: ‘Laura! What in hell’s Phyllis riding?’

His question answered hers; but the new problem it presented could be solved only by narrowing the strip of country between herself and her twin.

Either the hounds were hovering, or Warren’s horse had already tired himself, for the field gained steadily; they could see his coat take shape, surmounted by the black dot of his velvet cap, his white breeches astride his big horse; they could easily distinguish Phyllis now, but what she rode remained a mystery. They could see the hounds, to most of them mere moving blobs of white; but Gee-Gee, his eyes trained to watch them at great distance, announced huskily to his huntsman: —

‘Their heads are up — they ’ve viewed the ol’ fellar. Gad, to think we’ve hunted that fox five seasons, an’ we ’re goin’ to miss the kill!’

Suddenly t hose watching saw a flash of light and, a second later, so much swifter does light travel than sound, the report of a shot fell on their ears.

Philip cried in anguish: ‘ They’ve hit my girl!’ and increased his pace.

The black figure and the little mare had become invisible, but Warren could be seen dismounting and stooping at the spot where they had disappeared. His horse, left free, ran on a bit, then turned and waited reproachfully.

As the riders drew nearer, the prone body of the other horse could be viewed, and, a little away, thrown clear, lay Phyllis. The Hunt servants pulled apart from the field, making for the direction from which the shot had been fired; the strangers, by common instinct, held back, their early disappointment obliterated by the shadow of real tragedy.

Philip and Laura reached her first; but half a field away Warren’s voice had come to them.

‘She’s all right, she is n’t hit — the devils got her horse.’

And as they dismounted and crowded about her, Phyllis sat up and smiled wanly at them.

Philip found relief in swearing, Laura in tears; those who joined them, in action or questionings, according to their bent. The little mare was done for: the bullet had entered her lungs and there was only one kind and certain course to pursue.

Phyllis, on her feet again, having explained Pollyanna to her family, kissed the white star between the dimming eyes, her own blinded by sorrow and remorse.

' Dear, brave heart!' she whispered: ‘poor little glad girl! I ’ve brought this to you when you had given me so much.’

The huntsman rode up and reported to Grahm: —

‘It ’s them Farwell boys, sir: they ’d come out to shoot foxes, laughin’ to think how they’d held up the field in the woods. Then, when they seen the gentleman an’ Miss Phyllis, they was howlin’ mad, thinkin’ the whole field was behind ’em, sir; and they planned on shootin’ the fox before you all; but there was an argyment and an accident sir — an’ to think Miss Phyllis isn’t killed at all! ’

Gee-Gee nodded. ‘Thank God, she was n’t; it’s a nasty business though. Best get along after the hounds, Simonds.’

The man touched his cap and galloped off, most of the field following.

‘Everybody better go on,’ Philip had said; ‘there’s nothing to be done. I ’ll stay with Phyllis, if you ’ll send back something to pick us up.’

‘I think, if you don’t mind, Mr. Colford, Phyllis and I ’ll see this through together,’ Warren put in. ‘We had the run together, and I ’m sure we’d both prefer to do what little we can.’

Something in his tone communicated to Philip that remonstrances would prove futile.

‘As you like,’ he said. ‘ I ’ll send some men with a team, and — and a pistol,’ he added, though the stream of blood coagulating in front of the little mare suggested that this, too, might be unnecessary.

He patted Phyllis as she continued to kneel by the dying horse. ‘It ’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I ’ll whip off these thrusters, and you and Warren can put this through alone.’

He turned to his other daughter, offering to put her up. ‘Come, Laura,’ he said significantly, ‘the best thing we can do is to clear out. Hint as much to Gee-Gee, will you?’

Someone had recaptured his horse, and Warren stood, with his arm through the reins of the bridle, his eyes on the little figure before him, until the last straggler had disappeared.

Then, ‘Phyllis,’ he said very gently, ‘ was I right in saying you ’d rather see this through alone with me?’

She turned anxious eyes upon him. ‘But you ’ll miss the finish, Warren,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to ruin your day, too.’

‘My dear,’ he answered, ‘don’t you know the only things you can ruin for me are the things you won’t let me share with you. Be as penitent as you like for last evening, but to-day — you said it was to be your day, Phyllis; will you make it a very happy one for me?’

Top Form, finding himself free again, wondered what on earth they had discovered that rendered them oblivious of him and of the hunt.