He was evidently about to make some
comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face,
unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the same
policy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith tracked
him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and
searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest
division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up
to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized
Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was not
in the least what he had looked. She longed to return to the
contemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual,
deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some
enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. He was
frowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with his
fingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between Judith and
the new boy.
"What _can_ you do? What _do_ you know?" asked the former at last.
"I can ride horseback," said Arnold defiantly.
Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall which
was the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained,
as a trust by one of Father's students from the Far West, who was now
graduated and a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much to
keep a horse.
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