Lottie Marsden, although greatly alarmed by their critical situation, was naturally too courageous to give way utterly to fear, and not so terrified but that she could note all Hemstead did; and for some reason she believed he would be equal to the emergency. His confidence, moreover, communicated itself to her. She saw that he did not jerk or saw on the reins at first, but, bracing his large powerful frame, drew steadily back, and that the horses yielded somewhat to his masterful grasp.

"Pull," cried Harcourt, excitedly; "you can hold them."

"Yes, jerk their cursed heads off," shouted De Forrest, in a way that proved his self-control was nearly gone.

"Hush, I tell you!" said Hemstead, in a low tone. "I might break the lines if I exerted my whole strength. Then where should we be? I don't wish to put any more strain upon them than I must. See, they are giving in more and more."

"But the hill is near," said Harcourt.

"You must let me manage in my own way," said Hemstead. "Not another sound from any one."

Then in a firm tone, strong but quiet like his grasp upon the reins, he spoke to the horses. In three minutes more he had them prancing with many a nervous start, but completely under his control, down the first descent of the hill.

"Will you take the reins again?" he said to Harcourt.

"No, hang it all. You are a better horseman than I am."

"Not at all, Mr. Harcourt. I am heavier and stronger than you probably, and so braced that I had a great advantage. You had no purchase on them, and were chilled by long driving."

"Where did you learn to manage horses?" asked Lottie.

"On our Western farm. We had plenty of them. A horse is almost human: you must be very firm and very kind."

"Is that the way to treat the 'human'?" said Lottie, her bold and somewhat reckless spirit having so far recovered itself as to enable her to laugh.

"Yes, for a man, if he attempts to manage at all; but I suppose the majority of us are managed, if we would only acknowledge it. What chance has a man with a coaxing, clever woman?"

"Look there," said Harcourt, as they were turning the first sharp angle in the road to which he had referred. "Where should we have been if we had gone round this point at our speed when I held the reins?"

The steep embankment, with grim rocks protruding from the snow and with gnarled trunks of trees, was anything but inviting.

"Come, De Forrest," continued Harcourt, "brush up your mathematics. At what angle, and with what degree of force, should we have swooped down there on a tangent, when the horses rounded this curve?"

"O-o-h!" exclaimed Lottie, looking shudderingly down the steep bank, at the bottom of which brawled a swift stream among ice-capped rocks. "It's just the place for a tragedy. We were talking about heaven and the other place when the horses started, were we not? Perhaps we were nearer one or the other of them than we supposed."

"O, hush, Lottie!" cried Bel, still sobbing and trembling; "I wish we had remained at home."

"I echo that wish most decidedly," muttered De Forrest. "The whole evening has been like a nightmare."

"I am sorry my expedition has been a source of wretchedness to every one," said Lottie, coldly.

"Not every one, I'm sure," said Hemstead. "Certainly not to me. Besides, your expedition has made a pastor and a whole parish happy, and I also dimly foresee a seat in Congress for Harcourt as a result."

"Very dimly indeed," laughed Harcourt. "Still,—now that our necks are safe, thanks to Mr. Hemstead, I'm glad I went. Human nature lies on the surface out at Scrub Oaks, and one can learn much about it in a little while. Come, little coz, cheer up," he said to Addie, drawing her closer to him. "See, we are down the hill and across the bridge. No danger of the horses running up the long hill before us, and by the time they reach the top they will be glad to go the rest of the way quietly."

"You had better take the reins again, Mr. Harcourt," said Hemstead.

"O Mr. Hemstead, please drive," cried the ladies, in chorus.

"No," said he; "Mr. Harcourt is as good a driver as I am. It was only a question of strength before."

"The majority is against me," laughed Harcourt. "I won't drive any more to-night. You take my place."

"Well, if you all wish it; but there's no need."

"Let me come over, too, and sit between you and Bel," said Addie, eagerly.

"No, she can sit with Julian," said Lottie, "and I will go to Mr.
Hemstead. He shall not be left alone."

"O Miss Lottie! please forgive me," pleaded De Forrest; "I did not mean what I said a moment since."

"Well, I'll forgive you, but shall punish you a little. Stop the horses again, Mr. Hemstead; that is, if you don't object to my company."

The horses stopped very suddenly.

"Please don't leave me," said De Forrest.

"It's only carrying out the mischief we plotted, you know," she whispered.

"Well, I submit on that ground only," he replied discontentedly, and with a shade of doubt in his mind. It seemed very strange, even to him, that Lottie could coolly continue to victimize one who had just rendered them so great a service. But the truth was, that she, in her desire to escape from him, had said what she thought would be apt to quiet his objections without much regard for the truth. She hardly recognized her own motive for wishing to sit by Hemstead, beyond that she was grateful, and found him far more interesting than the egotistical lover, who to-day, for some reason, had proved himself very wearisome.

"Hemstead heard nothing of this, and was much pleased when Lottie stepped lightly over and took her place socially at his side.

"It's very kind of you," he said.

"I didn't come out of kindness," she replied, in a low tone for his ear alone.

"Why then?"

"Because I wanted to."

"I like that reason better still."

"And with good reason. Will you take me again over this awful road to see Mrs. Dlimm?"

"With great pleasure."

"But it's such a long drive! You will get cold driving."

"O, no! not if you will talk to me so pleasantly."

"I won't promise how I'll talk. In fact I never know what I'll do when with you. You made me act very silly this afternoon."

"Is a flower silly when it blooms?"

"What do you mean?"

"You wished you were better."

"O, I see; but suppose I would like to remain—for a while at least—a wicked, little undeveloped bud?"

"You can't. The bud must either bloom or wither."

"O, how dismal! Were you afraid, Mr. Hemstead, when the horses were running? I was."

"I was anxious. It certainly was a critical moment with that hill before us."

"How queer that we should have been talking of the future state just then! Suppose that, instead of sitting here cosily by you, I were lying on those rocks over there, or floating in that icy stream bleeding and dead?"

He turned and gave her a surprised look, and she saw the momentary glitter of a tear in his eye.

"Please do not call up such images," he said.

She was in a strangely excited and reckless mood, and did not understand herself. Forces that she would be long in comprehending were at work in her mind.

Partly for the sake of the effect upon him, and partly as the outgrowth of her strange mood, she continued, in a low tone which the others could not hear: "If that had happened, where should I have been now? Just think of it,—my body lying over there in this wild gorge, and I, myself, going away alone this wintry night. Where should I have gone? Where should I be now?"

"In paradise, I trust," he replied, bending upon her a searching look. Either his imagination or her thoughts gave her face a strange expression as seen in the uncertain moonlight. It suggested the awed and trembling curiosity with which she might have gone forward to meet the dread realities of the unknown world. A great pity—an intense desire to shield and rescue her—filled his soul.

"Miss Marsden," he said, in a tone that thrilled her in connection with the image called up, "your own words seem to portray you standing on the brink of a fathomless abyss into which you are looking with fear and dread."

"You understand me perfectly," she said. "That is just where I stand; but it is like looking out into one of those Egyptian nights that swallow up everything, and there is nothing but a great blank of darkness."

"It must be so," said Hemstead, sighing deeply. "Only the clear eyes of faith can see across the gulf. But you are a brave girl to stan............