A Girl of High Adventure by L.T. Meade

When one is young and when one is happy time goes fast; nay, more, time goes like lightning. There is the beautiful joy of existence, there is the exquisite feeling of love. There is the happiness in which each hour is occupied, fully, entirely, completely, for the use of others. Such was the case with little Margot St. Juste. She played with the sunshiny passing hours, she sat on The Desmond's knee and brought back such superb and astounding accounts of her rides on Starlight that something stirred in the old man's breast and he felt that he himself must, forsooth, go a-riding with this fascinating little colleen.

Accordingly the _King of the Desmonds_ was brought out and Malachi rode at one side of little Margot and The Desmond himself at the other. The old horse knew quite well who was on his back and in some remarkable measure got back some of his lost youth, and noble were the exercises which the three riders took over hills and dales, across country, over different stiles and various impediments, and each day The Desmond felt younger and laughed and talked more cheerily.