Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/43

 Oh, come, now!" protested Sir Redmond feebly, and sucked furiously at his pipe.

"Yes," reiterated Beatrice, examining his perturbed face judicially; "you are downright ugly."

The face of Sir Redmond grew redder and more perturbed; just as Beatrice meant that it should; she seemed to derive a keen pleasure from goading this big, good-looking Englishman to the verge of apoplexy.

"I'm sure I never meant to be rude; but a fellow can't fall down and worship every young farmer, don't you know—not even to please you!"

Beatrice smiled and threw a pebble down the slope, watching it bound and skip to the bottom, where it rolled away and hid in the grass.

"I love this wide country," she observed, abandoning her torture with a suddenness that was a characteristic of her nature. When Beatrice had made a man look and act the fool she was ready to stop; one cannot say that of every woman. "One can draw long, deep breaths without robbing one's neighbor of oxygen. Everything is so big, and broad, and generous, out here. One can ride for miles and miles through the grandest, wildest places, 41