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“I’m taking you out of your way!” she pleaded, and he answered gravely:

“Oh, no; I’ll be much happier seeing you safe home.”

When they reached her gate, the two changed horses, and Sammy rode slowly up the dark driveway alone. Even on this brilliant afternoon the old Peneyre place looked dull and gloomy. Dusty dark pines and eucalyptus trees grew close about the house. There was no garden, but here and there an unkempt geranium or rank great bush of marguerites sprawled in the uncut grass, and rose bushes, long grown wild, stood in spraying clusters that were higher than a man’s head. Pampas trees, dirty and overgrown, outlined the drive at regular intervals, their shabby plumes uncut from year to year.

The house was heavy, bay-windowed, three-storied. Ugly, immense, unfriendly, it struck an inharmonious note in the riotous free growth of the surrounding woods. The dark entrance-hall was flanked by a library full of obsolete, unread books, and by double drawing-rooms, rarely opened now. All the windows on the ground floor were darkened by the shrubbery outside and by heavy red draperies within.

Sammy, entering a side door, seemed to leave the day’s brightness behind her. The air indoors was chill, flat. A half-hearted little coal fire flickered in the grate, and Koga was cleaning silver at the table. Sammy took David Copperfield from the mantel and settled herself in a great chair.

“Koga, you go fix Clown now,” she suggested.

Koga beamed assent. Departing, he wrestled with a remark: “Oh! Nise day. I sink so.”

Sammy agreed. “You don’t have weather like this in Japan in April!”

“Oh, yis,” said Koga, and, drunk with the joy of speech, he added: “I sink so. Awe time nise in Jap-pon! I sink so.”

“All the time nice in Japan?” echoed Sammy, lazily. “Oh, what a story!”

But Koga was convulsed with innocent mirth. However excruciating the effort, he had produced a remark in English. He retired, repeating between spasms of enjoyment: “Oh, I sink so. Awe time nise in Jap-pon!”

The day dragged on, to all outward seeming like all of Sammy’s days. Twilight made her close her book and straighten her bent shoulders. Pong came in to set the table. The slamming of the hall door announced her father.

Presently Mrs. Moore, the housekeeper, came downstairs. Lamps were lighted; dinner loitered its leisurely way. After it the doctor set up one of his endless chess problems on the end of the table, and Sammy returned to David Copperfield.

“Father, you know Anthony Gayley–that young carpenter in Torney’s shop?”

“I do, my dear.”

“Well, Clown ran away to-day, and he really saved me from a bad smash.”

A long pause.

“Ha!” said the doctor, presently. “Set this down, will you, Sammy? Rook to queen’s fourth. Check. Now, knight–any move. No–hold on. Yes. Knight any move. Now, rook–wait a minute!”

His voice fell, his eyes were fixed. Sammy sighed.

At eight she fell to mending the fire with such vigor that her colorless little face burned. Then her spine felt chilly. Sammy turned about, trying to toast evenly; but it couldn’t be done. She thought suddenly of her warm bed, put her finger in her book, kissed her father’s bald spot between two yawns, and went upstairs.

The dreams went, too. There was nothing in this neglected, lonely day, typical of all her days, to check them. It was delicious, snuggling down in the chilly sheets, to go on dreaming.

Again she was riding alone in the woods. Again Clown was running away. Again, big gentle Anthony Gayley was galloping behind her. Again for that breathless moment she was in his arms. Sammy shut her eyes….

Her father, coming upstairs, wakened her. She lay smiling in the dark. What had she been thinking of? Oh, yes! And out came the dream horses and their riders again….

The next day she rode over the same bit of road again, and the day after, and the day after that. The rides were absolutely uneventful, but sweet with dreams.