"You were not hurt?" inquired Craven, with deep interest in his
tone.
"Oh, no; there is no harm done, except to my riding skirt, which has
been torn and muddied by the fall," said Cap, laughing and resuming
her efforts to tighter the girth.
"Pray permit me," said Craven, gently taking the end of the strap
from her hand; "this is no work for a lady, and, besides, is beyond
your strength."
Capitola, thanking him, withdrew to the side of the road, and,
seating herself upon the trunk of a fallen tree, began to brush the
dirt from her habit.
Craven adjusted and secured the saddle with great care, patted and
soothed the pony and then, approaching Capitola in the most
deferential manner, stood before her and said: "Miss Black, you will
pardon me, I hope, if I tell you that the peril I had imagined you
to be in has so agitated my mind as to make it impossible for me
longer to withhold a declaration of my sentiments--" Here his voice,
that had trembled throughout this disclosure, now really and utterly
failed him.
Capitola looked up with surprise and interest; she had never in her
life before heard an explicit declaration of love from anybody. She
and Herbert somehow had always understood each other very well,
without ever a word of technical love-making passing between them;
so Capitola did not exactly know what was coming next.
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