conversation. Had they done so it is safe to say that they would never had proposed the two-mile race to the post office nor tormented Beverly for being “no sort of a sport,” and “scared to back her painted plug against their thoroughbreds.” They were honorable lads and would have felt honor-bound to respect Mrs. Ashby’s wishes. But not having heard, they gave Beverly “all that was coming to her for riding a calico nag,” though said “nag” was certainly a little beauty.

Nearly a quarter of the distance to Four Corners had been ridden when Beverly’s temper, never too elastic, snapped. Her riding crop descended with a thwack, first upon Royal’s round flank, then upon Snowdrift’s and finally upon Apache’s side as she cried:

“You-all hush up and ride. I’ll beat you to Four Corners or die in the attempt!”

The sudden onslaught brought the result to be expected. The two thoroughbreds plunged forward with snorts of indignant protest, answered by Apache’s very plebian squeal of rage as he shook his bony little head and struck into a gait such as Beverly had never dreamed a horse could strike. It was like a tornado let loose, and, expert little horsewoman that she was, she found ample occupation for all her wits and equestrian skill, though she managed to jerk out as she whirled past her companions:

“Two pounds of Huyler’s candy if I do beat those giraffes of yours.”

Hence the commotion at Four Corners a few moments later, the whirlwind arrived and the conversation recorded in the first chapter.

“Mr. Telford, have you got any Huyler boxes?” asked the winner of the race, resting her gauntleted hands and her riding crop upon the counter. “These boys are trying to make me take two pounds of cinnamon suckers on a bet. Did you ever hear such nonsense? I couldn’t eat them in a year and real, sure-enough bets mean something better than suckers.”

“Wall, Miss Bev’ly, I aint rightly knowin’ what kind o’ lollypops is in them boxes, most times folks jist helps theirselves an’ I don’t pay no ’tention ter the brand. It’s all candy, I reckon,” answered the shop keeper, drawing two or three boxes from his case and placing them upon his counter. From the appearance of the wrappings they belied Huyler’s advertisement of being “fresh every hour,” though one of the boxes bore that firm’s name. The others were stamped by Martha Washington, Lowney and one or two other widely known manufacturers.

“Yes this one’s Huyler’s but I’ve got to have two this time. Yes I have too! Athol’s got to put up for one and you for the other. Why just look at me! The mud on me ought to just naturally make you both want to do something to pay up for making me get into such a state.”

“We didn’t make you! You started the circus,” protested her brother.

“Blessed if I’d do a thing for you if it wasn’t likely to be the last race we’ll have in one while. Look at those,” interjected Archie Carey, coming over from the letter window where he had gone to ask for the mail and slamming upon the counter beside the boxes of candy half a dozen plump letters. Three bore the addresses of the schools under consideration. All three faces grew sober.

“I’ll bet those will settle your hash Bev,” was Athol’s comment.

“Ah, why couldn’t you have been a boy instead of a girl anyhow,” protested Archie. “Then you’d have come along with us as a matter of course and our good times wouldn’t have all been knocked into a cocked hat.”

“Come on. Let’s go home,” said Beverly soberly, as she gathered up her boxes, nodded to Mr. Telford, and took her mud-splashed self from the store, the boys lingering to pay the bill.

She had remounted Apache when they joined her, Archie carrying the letters which he stuffed viciously into the mail-bag strapped to his saddle. Then the two boys sprang upon their waiting horses. As they rode in silence Beverly glanced down at her khaki riding skirt and at Apache’s mud-splashed body, and the next moment had stopped short, exclaiming:

“Look at us, and I promised mother I wouldn’t race!”

“You did!” exclaimed the boys in duet.

“I sure did,” she repeated with a solemn nod.

This was too much for her companions and the woodland bordering the road echoed to their shouts. When they had regained some self-control Athol asked:

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“Do? I’m going to stop at the branch and scrub some of this mud off Apache and myself, for if we show up like this mother will think I’ve been acting ten times worse that I really have, though goodness knows it’s bad enough as it is. I didn’t mean to break my promise, but I couldn’t let you boys put it all over me like you did and not get back at you. Now get out of the way while I clean up, and maybe you could do a little on your own accounts and not suffer for it either. ‘Snowdrift!’ He looks exactly like one after a spring thaw.”

The boys glanced at the beautiful white horse and then at each other. The ensuing fifteen minutes were spent in the vigorous grooming of their steeds, Beverly scrubbing Apache as energetically as Archie and Athol did Royal and Snowdrift. Flat sticks served as scrapers and bunches of dry grass for cloths. When the animals looked a little less like animated mud pies Beverly turned her attention to her riding skirt. To restore that to its pristine freshness might have daunted a professional scourer. The more she rubbed and scrubbed the worse the result and finally, when she was a sight from alternate streaks of mud and wet splotches, she sprang upon the startled Apache crying:

“Come along home quick! If I’ve got to face the music the quicker it’s done the better,” and was off down the road in a fair way to being as muddy when she reached Woodbine as she was when she began her cleansing processes at the branch, while up in one of the dormer windows of the big house her mother stood smiling to herself. It was one of the rare occasions when she had occasion to go to that room for some stored away winter clothing against Beverly’s pending departure for boarding school. As the riders resumed their homeward journey she smiled and said softly:

“How exactly like Beverly. Now will come confession and repentance and shall I be able to keep a sober face?”

“Yes, I just forgot all about it, for of course I wasn’t going to let the boys run me to death, and oh, mother, Apache can get over the ground! I never saw anything like the way he ran.”

“No, neither have I,” replied Mrs. Ashby significantly.

“You!” asked Beverly in surprise.

Mrs. Ashby nodded though her lips twitched.

Beverly’s face clouded and her lips set.

“How did you see me?” she demanded.

“From the window of the north-east dormer chamber.”

The girl’s dark eyes grew darker and signs of a pending tempest lowered as she asked:

“Mother did you go up there to spy upon me? You almost never go into that room. Didn’t you believe me? Did you think I had to be watched? I think that was horrid, horrid of you. You know I didn’t mean to break my word. I just forgot when the boys teased me about my calico plug and you wouldn’t have stood for that if you’d been in my place. You just know you wouldn’t. You used to do