galloping toward

"Well, you can walk around the links with Billy and me. Barbara plays a dandy game--she can beat Dad all to pieces. Let's go down now and see the garden."Beyond the neatly-kept lawn with its bricked walks bordered with nasturtium beds was the stretch of garden in which the children had their individual beds. Peggy explained to Keineth that Billy this year had planted his bed to radishes and onions; that she had put in her seed in a pattern of her own designing which, when she separated the weeds from the flowers would look like a splendid combination of a new moon and the Big Dipper .



Barbara and Alice had planted asters and snapdragon because mother liked them for the house. Back of the flower beds was a patch of young corn, and behind that the vegetable garden which supplied the table. At one side of the garden was the barn where poor Genevieve was now resting her rickety bones, and next to that was a shed.Billy was busy at work repairing the door of the shed. As the girls came in sight he waved to them. They started on a run.

"Let's give Ken a ride on Gypsy," he called out. He dropped his hammer, disappeared in the barn and came out leading a shaggy pony.At the sound of the nickname carelessly bestowed upon her Keineth drew in her breath quickly. Right at that moment she wanted more than anything else in the world that these children should not think she was a bit different from them Nespresso Capsules! Already her plain serge dress had been hung away and she was in a blouse and bloomers like Peggy's!



"I don't know," began Peggy doubtfully."Oh, please, let me have a ride," broke in Keineth in a voice she tried to make as careless as Billy's own."We always ride Gypsy bareback--climb up here on these boxes!"Keineth stepped upon the boxes, Billy wheeled the pony around and Keineth bravely swung one leg over the pony's back, taking the halter in her hand as she did so. Billy gave the pony a sound slap on the shoulder and off they flew!Never in her life had Keineth been on a horse's back, but she had caught the challenge in Billy's laughing eyes and her soul flamed with daring. She clenched her teeth tightly and, because she was in mortal terror of slipping off from the pony, she gripped her knees with all her might against his shaggy sides. In a funny little gallop--very like a rocking horse--he circled the house, while from the shed Billy and Peggy shouted to her encouragingly.



Keineth's first ride would have ended triumphantly if she had not laid her hand ever so lightly on a certain spot in Gypsy's neck! For Gypsy, having reached an age when he was of no further use in their business, had been bought a year before from a circus company by Mr. Lee and taken to Overlook, and at the time of the purchase no one had explained to Mr. Lee that Gypsy's training had included quietly throwing the clown from her back in a way which had always won screams of laughter from the spectators and that the little act came at the moment when the clown touched a certain spot on her neck! All the young Lees had ridden Gypsy but had not happened to discover this little trick. But Keineth Espresso Coffee, just as she had safely passed the kitchen door and wasthe shed, suddenly felt herself flying over Gypsy's head! Her fall was broken by a pile of sand which had been hauled up from the beach for the garden. Keineth was more startled than hurt, though she felt a little stunned and lay for a moment very still.