"Why idiots?" I asked.
"Never to have thought of her not being at home."
"Speak for yourself," said I.
At that moment a young woman on horseback cantered past.
"That girl rides well," I exclaimed.
"That's she," said John, and he turned abruptly round to watch her, regardless of manners.
"How do you know it is she?"
"That is the way she would ride."
"She does not look like the author of those melancholy ditties," I objected.
"No, but she looks like the author of the jubilant ones."
We were walking slowly back, and John was much elated at his own penetration when the lady stopped in front of the house we had just left, sprang lightly to the ground, patted her horse's nose, hitched him to the post, and went into the house. We were not quite a block away, so that we could see every movement plainly, though the face was not discernible.
