“See Essex Maid look at my pony, grandpa!” she said joyously.  “She looks so proud and stuck up.”

“Look away, my lady,” said the broker.  “You’ll see a great deal more of this young spring before you see less.”

Zeke dismounted.

“Now then,” Mr. Evringham looked up at the child.  “I’m going to let go your bridle.”

“I want you to,” she answered gayly.

Mr. Evringham mounted his horse.  “We’ll take a sedate walk through the woods,” he said.  “Zeke, you might lead her a little way.”

“No, no, please,” begged the child.  “I know how to ride.  I do.”

“Well, let her go then,” smiled the broker, and Essex Maid trotted slowly, noting with haughty bright eyes the little black companion, who might have stepped out of a picture book, but whose easy canter was tossing Jewel at every step.

“I haven’t—­any—­whip!” The words were bounced out of the child’s lips, and Mr. Evringham’s laugh resounded along the avenue.

“I believe she’d use it,” he said to Zeke, who was running along beside the black pony.

“I guess she would, sir,” grinned the young fellow responsively.

It was not many days before Jewel had learned to stay in the saddle.  She had an efficient teacher who worked with her con amore, and the sight of the erect, gray-haired man on his famous mare, always accompanied by the rosy little girl on a black pony, came to be a familiar sight in Bel-Air, and one which people always turned to follow with their eyes.

Eloise had her talk with Mr. Evringham one evening when Jewel was excluded from the library, and she emerged from the interview with a more contented heart than she had known for a year.

She endeavored to convey the situation to her mother in detail, but when that lady had learned that there were no happy surprises, she declined to listen.

“Tastes differ, Eloise,” she said.  “I am one who believes that where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.”  Mrs. Evringham had regained a quite light-hearted appearance in the interest of expending a portion of her windfall on her own and Eloise’s summer wardrobe.

“Well, you shan’t be bothered then,” returned her daughter.  “You have me to take care of our money matters.”

“I prefer to let father do it,” returned Mrs. Evringham decidedly.  “He is a changed being of late, and we are as well situated as we could hope to be.  I don’t feel quite satisfied with the lining of the brougham, but some day I mean to speak of it.”

Eloise threw up both hands, but she laughed.  She and her grandfather had an excellent understanding, and she knew that the mills of the gods were about to grind.

One evening the broker called his daughter-in-law into the library.

“I hope it isn’t on business,” she remarked flippantly as she entered.  “I tell you right at the start, father, I can’t understand it.”  Her eyes wandered about the room curiously.  It was strange to her.  She took up a woman’s picture from the desk.  “Who is this?” she asked.