"
"Oh, no! Why should I mind?" Beatrice smiled upon him in friendly
fashion. She liked Sir Redmond very much--only she hoped he was not
going to make love. Somehow, she did not feel in the mood for
love-making just then.
"I don't know why, I'm sure. But you seem rather fond of riding about
these hills by yourself. One should never ask why women do things, I
fancy. It seems always to invite disaster."
"Does it?" Beatrice was not half-listening. They were passing, just
then, the suburbs of a "dog town," and she was never tired of watching
the prairie-dogs stand upon their burrows, chip-chip defiance until fear
overtook their impertinence, and then dive headlong deep into the earth.
"I do think a prairie-dog is the most impudent creature alive and the
most shrewish. I never pass but I am scolded by these little scoundrels
till my ears burn. What do you think they say?"
"They're probably inviting you to stop with them and be their queen, and
are scolding because your heart is hard and you only laugh and ride on."
"Queen of a prairie-dog town! Dear me! Why this plaintive mood?"
"Am I plaintive? I do not mean to be, I'm sure."
"You don't appear exactly hilarious," she told him. "I can't see what is
getting the matter with us all. Mama and your sister are poor company,
even for each other, and Dick is like a bear.
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