CHAPTER III.
At the end of twenty minutes Mr.Hamlin reined in his mare.

He had just observed in the distant shadows of a by-lane that intersected his road the vanishing flutter of two light print dresses.

Without a moment's hesitation he lightly swerved out of the high-road and followed the retreating figures.
As he neared them, they seemed to be two slim young girls, evidently so preoccupied with the rustic amusement of edging each other off the grassy border into the dust of the track that they did not perceive his approach.

Little shrieks, slight scufflings, and interjections of "Cynthy! you limb!" "Quit that, Eunice, now!" and "I just call that real mean!" apparently drowned the sound of his canter in the soft dust.
Checking his speed to a gentle trot, and pressing his horse close beside the opposite fence, he passed them with gravely uplifted hat and a serious, preoccupied air.

But in that single, seemingly conventional glance, Mr.Hamlin had seen that they were both pretty, and that one had the short upper lip of his errant little guide.