"True. But I can't very well ride that horse without a saddle and risk having my skirts blow up around my neck, now can I?" Whitney breezily argued while she twisted her long unruly hair into a knot and pinned it at her nape.

"Ride without a saddle? You can't mean you're going to ride astride-your father will disown you if you do that again."

"I am not going to ride astride. Although," Whitney giggled, "I can't understand why men are allowed to straddle a horse, while we-who are supposed to be the weaker sex-must hang off the side, praying for our lives."

Emily refused to be diverted. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I never realized what an inquisitive young lady you are, Miss Williams," Whitney teased. "But to answer your question, I am going to ride standing on the horse's back. I saw it done at the fair, and I've been practicing ever since. Then, when Paul sees how well I do, he'll-"

"He'll think you have lost your mind, Whitney Stone! He'll think that you haven't a grain of sense or propriety, and that you're only trying something else to gain his attention." Seeing the stubborn set of her friend's chin, Emily switched her tactics. "Whitney, please-think of your father. What win he say if he finds out?"

Whitney hesitated, feeling the force of her cither's unwaveringly cold stare as if it were this minute focused upon her. She drew a long breath, then expelled it slowly as she glanced out the small window at the group waiting on the lawn.

Wearily, she said, "Father will say that, as usual, I have disappointed him, that I am a disgrace to him and to my mother's memory, that he is happy she didn't live to see what I have become. Then he will spend half an hour telling me what a perfect lady Elizabeth Ashton is, and that I ought to be like her."

"Well, if you really wanted to impress Paul, you could try . . ."

Whitney clenched her hands in frustration. "I have tried to be like Elizabeth. I wear those disgusting ruffled dresses that. make me feel like a pastel mountain, I've practiced going for hours without saying a word, and I've fluttered my eyelashes until my eyelids go limp."