Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/135

 Mr. Jones's ruddy face, innocent grey eyes and black bear coat.

The horses pawed impatiently and snuffed the air. No livery stable hacks these flashing cat-like creatures. Then she remembered hearing her father say that Mr. Scollay had recently bought a pair of black Morgans, the handsomest horses ever seen in Boston. So this lost and wanton man had borrowed from the family of one young lady the wherewithal to dazzle another—sly dog! And these unfeeling, sinful, even lustful brutes are not only our equals but our masters, forsooth. Would, under different circumstances, dear little Miss Spence effect a like perfidy? Would Miss Gatherall stoop to borrow the horses of one man that she might play fast and loose with another? The jet buttons strained at their moorings.

Lanice came belling down the stairs, her fetching new brown velvet frock filling the narrow hall. With it she wore her mink pelisse, furred Russian boots of green leather, a cinnamon-brown bonnet with coral-colored roses to match her coral breastpin, earrings, and bracelet. The girl was hardly an heiress. Sinful to care so deeply what one puts on one's back, and the heathen running naked!

'Good-bye, dear Pauline.' She kissed her with a new-learned fervor which left Pauline shaking her head, rubbing her chin, and squinting between the heavy curtains at the red sleigh glistening on the blinding snow, at silver bells shaking on satin horses.

'Lanice, we shall go for miles...far out in the