CHAPTER IX.
THE REVEILLE Half an hour after Colonel Fortescue and Broussard rode away, Anita, walking into her mother's room, said to Mrs.Fortescue: "Mother, let us ride this afternoon.

It is so gloriously clear and cold." Mrs.Fortescue turned from the desk where she was writing and hesitated.
"I saw your father go off on Gamechick.

You can ride Pretty Maid, but your father objects so much to my riding Birdseye." "But there are plenty of mounts besides Birdseye," said Anita.
Mrs.Fortescue glanced out of the window at the winter landscape and shivered a little.
"It is very cold," she said, "and rather late; the sun will be gone in a little while." Anita came behind her mother and put her hands under Mrs.Fortescue's pretty chin.
"Dear mother," she said, "I want so much to ride this afternoon; I feel that I must.

Won't you go out, if it is only for half an hour ?" Anita's eloquent eyes and pleading voice were not lost upon Mrs.
Fortescue, who found it difficult always to resist pleadings.
"Well then," she said, "call up the stables and tell them to bring the horses around as soon as possible, and some one to go with us, perhaps McGillicuddy." Ten minutes later, Mrs.Fortescue and Anita, in their trim black habits and smart little hats fastened on with filmy veils, came out on the stone steps.

The trooper was leading the horses up and down, and Sergeant McGillicuddy, as escort, put both ladies into their saddles and then himself mounted.