l daybreak, everything raw
and chilly. Busy, and their mechanics busy, and one after another
swinging into his car and going off like a rocket. By the time
Lestrange went off, I was as much stirred up as anybody. When he made
a record circuit at seventy-seven miles an hour average, I was
shouting over the rail like a good one. And then, while he was off
again, a big blue car rolled in and its driver yelled that Lestrange
had gone over on the Eastbury turn, and to send around the ambulance.
It was like a nightmare; I sat down on a stone and felt sick."

"He--"

"He shook me up half an hour later, and stood laughing at me. 'Upset?'
he said. 'No; we shed a tire and went off into a field, but it didn't
hurt the machine, so we righted her and came in.' He was limping and
bruised and scratched, but he was laughing, while a crowd of people
were trying to shake hands with him and say things. I felt--funny; as
if I wasn't much good. I never felt like that before. 'This is only
practise,' he said, when I was about to go. 'The race to-morrow will
do better. We find it more exciting than cocktails.' That was all, but
I knew what he meant, all right. I've been careful ever since. He won
the race next day, too."

"Dick, didn't it ever occur to you that you as well as Mr. Lestrange
might do real things?" she asked, after a moment.

He turned his round, good-humored face to her in boundless amazement.

"I? I race cars and break my neck and call it fun, like Lestrange?
You're laughing at me, Emily."

"No, no," in spite of herself the picture evoked brought her smile.
"Not like that. But you might be interested in the factory. You might
learn from Mr. Bailey and take charge of the business with Uncle
Ethan. It would please uncle, _how_ it would please him, if you
did!"

[Illustration]

Dick stirred unhappily.

"It would take a lot of grind," he objected. "I haven't the head for
it, really. I'm not such an awfully bad lot, but I hate work. Let's
not be serious, cousin. How pretty the frosty wind makes you look!"

Emily tightened the reins with a brief sigh of resignation.

"Never mind, Dickie. I--uncle will find a substitute. Things must go
on somehow, I suppose, even if we do not like the way."

But the way loomed distasteful that morning as never before.

IV

Mr. Ffrench and his niece were at breakfast, on the Sunday when the
first account of the Georgia race reached Ffrenchwood.

"You will take fresh coffee,