"Perhaps if you will allow me to pet him a little, we may induce a
change in his behaviour." He drew near and laid his head upon the
pony's mane, accidentally brushing with his moustache the warm little
hand upon the reins. Its owner drew it away, while an expression of
absolute pain crossed her face. "I don't know what you can think of
me," she said contritely. "I lost one of my gloves in reaching for a
branch above my head, and its no use wearing the other and trying to
be half respectable." She was miserably conscious that she was not
even that, as she tried to fasten up her loosely waving locks, and
thought of the awful rent in her habit, through which that saving pin
had slipped and been lost sight of forever, like a weary little
missionary in a very large field of labour. The skirt beneath was
deplorably short, and her feet, though small, were not small enough to
be invisible. Her chivalrous attendant seemed quite unconscious of
these glaring deficiencies in her appearance, as he looked up with a
bright smile, and said: "There, I think he will go now." At the word
Flip began a slow undulating movement, something akin to that produced
by a rocking-horse, which while it "goes" fast enough makes no
perceptible progress.
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