Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green fluttered, brushing her cheeks.  Beneath the thickets the under-wood world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year’s leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this earthly paradise.

It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted her, and wheeling, joined her—­a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted, smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure.

“Upon my word,” she said gaily, “you are certainly spring incarnate, Miss Erroll—­the living embodiment of all this!” She swung her riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth.  “But where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning?  Is he so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord and master?”

“Do you mean Gerald?” asked Eileen innocently, “or Captain Selwyn?”

“Oh, either,” returned Rosamund airily; “a girl should have something masculine to talk to on a morning like this.  Failing that she should have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come, D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent—­smilingly.  Oh, la!  Oh, me!  All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, lacking even my own Gilpin!  Shall we gallop?”

Eileen nodded.

When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen’s hair had rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of ruddy light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as immaculate as ever and coolly inspected her companion.

“What gorgeous hair,” she said, staring.  “It’s worth a coronet, you know—­if you ever desire one.”

“I don’t,” said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the insurgent curl under discipline.

“I dare say you’re right; coronets are out of vogue among us now.  It’s the fashion to marry our own good people.  By the way, you are continuing to astonish the town, I hear.”

“What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?”

“Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody says that Boots—­”

“Boots!” repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed deliciously.

“Poor, poor Boots!  Did they say that about him?  Oh, it really is too bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent of people to say such things.  My only consolation is that Boots won’t care; and if he doesn’t, why should I?”