39
                  A Ride before Breakfast.
evidently painted in oil, three quarters of a cen-
tury ago, exhibited a girl of sixteen with a smiling
profile, hair cut like a boy�s and a body like a
pillow, with a string tied across it, immediately be-
low the bosom.       The Elmendorfs must have
been good and comfortable people; why should
their dear little descendant have come across the
Rawlingses?   I fell asleep thinking of her, and of
Hannah, as the rain descended heavily outside.
  26.  Sunday.   Aroused by 7 by the irrepres-
sible Rawlings, who must fain exhibit his stables,
his sheds, his grounds, his trees, his horses.   The
house stands prettily on the highbank above the rail
road, a declivity of lawn, trees, and beds of flow-
ers fronting it.      To the right and behind is quite
an orchard, a profusion of apples lying among the
dead leaves on the grass.     In the rear, past a
space devoted to fruit and vegetables, are the
stables.    Rawlings proposes a ride and saddles
the two horses.     Mine was a splendid fellow who
took me round an adjoining paddock, twice, at full
gallop, as a matter of course, without any intima-
tion of desire on my part.     We then rode out,
through and over Rawlings� acres.     He walked
his animal or rather crawled the whole way, de-
nouncing his saddle; I enjoyed a most exhilara-
ting gallop up the road, down it, across the
fields, down the hollows and into the timber.  The