she gets stronger. How far is it to the station? I
think I should not mind driving the ponies on."

In the meantime the fat farmer whom we had passed so rapidly had
arrived at the scene of action, his anxiety not having induced him in
the slightest degree to increase the jog-trot pace at which all his
ideas seemed to travel. He knew Lady Horsingham quite well, and now
sat in his gig with his hat off, wiping his fat face, and expatiating
on the narrow escape her ladyship had made, but without offering the
slightest suggestion or assistance whatever.

At this juncture the cripple showed himself a man of energy.

"Your ladyship had best go home with this gentleman," said he,
indicating the fat farmer, "if the young lady is not afraid to go on.
I can take care of her as far as the railway, if it's not too great a
liberty, and bring the ponies back to the Hall afterwards, my lady?"
with an interrogative snatch at his ragged hat.

It seemed the best thing to be done under the circumstances. My aunt,
after much demurring and another incipient attack of the hysterics,
consented to entrust herself to the fat farmer's guidance, not,
however, until she was assured that his horse was both blind and
broken-winded. I put Mouse's bridle down on the lower bar instead of
the cheek, on which he had previously been driven. My aunt climbed
into the gig; I mounted the pony-carriage, the cripple took his seat
deferentially by my side, and away we went on our respective journeys;
certainly in a mode which we had little anticipated when we left the
front door at Dangerfield Hall.

My preserver sat half in and half out of the carriage, leaning his
white, well-shaped hand upon the splashboard. The bandaged side of his
face was towards me. The ponies went quietly enough; they had enjoyed
their gallop, and were, I think, a little blown. I had leisure to take
a good survey of my companion. When we had thus travelled for a
quarter of a mile in silence he turned his face towards me. We looked
at each other for about half a minute, and then both burst out
laughing.

"You didn't know me, Miss Coventry! not the least in the world,"
exclaimed the cripple, pulling the bandage off his face, and showing
another eye quite as handsome as the one that had previously been
uncovered.

"How could you do so, Captain Lovell?" was all I could reply.
"Conceive if my aunt had found you out, or even if any one should
recognize you now. What would people think