re was nothing in the way, a black woolly dog
jumped out into the road some distance ahead of me and stood there
barking. My heart fell, like a bucket into a well with the rope broken.
If I steered the least bit to the right or the left I believe I would
have bounded over the hedge like a glass bottle from a railroad train,
and come down on the other side in shivers and splinters. If I didn't
turn I was making a bee-line for the dog; but I had no time to think
what to do, and in an instant that black woolly dog faded away like a
reminiscence among the buzzing wheels of my tricycle. I felt a little
bump, but was ignorant of further particulars.

I was now going at what seemed like a speed of ninety or a hundred
miles an hour, with the wind rushing in between my teeth like water
over a mill-dam, and I felt sure that if I kept on going down that hill
I should soon be whirling through space like a comet. The only way I
could think of to save myself was to turn into some level place where
the thing would stop, but not a crossroad did I pass; but presently I
saw a little house standing back from the road, which seemed to hump
itself a little at that place so as to be nearly level, and over the
edge of the hump it dipped so suddenly that I could not see the rest of
the road at all.

"Now," thought I to myself, "if the gate of that house is open I'll
turn into it, and no matter what I run into, it would be better than
going over the edge of that rise beyond and down the awful hill that
must be on the other side of it." As I swooped down to the little house
and reached the level ground I felt I was going a little slower, but
not much. However, I steered my tricycle round at just the right
instant, and through the front gate I went like a flash.

I was going so fast, and my mind was so wound up on account of the
necessity of steering straight, that I could not pay much attention to
things I passed. But the scene that showed itself in front of me as I
went through that little garden gate I could not help seeing and
remembering. From the gate to the door of the house was a path paved
with flagstones; the door was open, and there must have been a low step
before it; back of the door was a hall which ran through the house, and
this was paved with flagstones; the back door of the hall was open, and
outside of it was a sort of arbor with vines, and on one side of this
arbor was a bench, with a young man and a young woman sitting on i