st Miss Herron had coaxed her horses up to it, and made them
stand, he crawled out from beneath it somewhere, red-faced, dusty and
with black grease on his hands.

"The penalty of recklessness!" observed the old lady, surveying the
boy as though he was inanimate stone. "Broken down."

"How d'ye do, Miss Herron?" said Fraser, apparently much embarrassed.
"Lucy----"

"Is that machine really broken?" The joyful hope in Miss Agatha's
voice was quite unconcealed. "Smashed?"

"There's something wrong, certainly," the boy confessed, ruefully. His
regard sought Lucy's. "But just what's amiss I can't see."

The old lady shook her head warningly. Some outward manifestation she
had to make in order to conceal the joy which, like a warm cordial,
penetrated every fiber of her being as a certain plan shaped itself in
her mind. This was the automobile which had frightened her horses and
set her nerves twittering; and now it reposed by the roadside
helpless. This was the reckless, handsome boy who had set her guests
laughing on an occasion requiring a measure of decorum, since the
bishop honored her house with his presence; who now, with every
appearance of impotent anger, was tinkering with the vitals of a hot
engine, dirty and perspiring. Miss Herron admired the idea which grew
before her imagination as she would have admired a beautiful,
unfolding flower.

"It ought to go now," the boy announced, after some further bungling
examination. What his testing and poking was supposed to accomplish
did not appear. He spoke with an odd ruefulness, and seemed to try to
deepen the impression his tone conveyed by another look at Lucy
eloquent of regret.

"Try it," said Miss Herron.

The boy threw over the balance wheel; there came forth a clank and
some faint clicks from the engine's interior; then cold silence
settled upon it again.

"No go," reported Archibald, and proceeded to explain what by rights
should have come to pass. "But none of these engines are perfected,"
he added.

"So there you must--remain? Two miles from any assistance?"

"Yes, Miss Herron."

"I rather question the willingness of any of our Barham folk to aid a
shipwrecked automobile. You drive them so heedlessly, young gentleman.
I confess," she continued, judiciously, "that I rather enjoy your
plight."

The boy grinned delightfully. "So do I. It isn't often"--how express
the light mockery that danced on his lips!--"that my accidents are so
charmingly comp