no further remark, and for the next quarter of an hour the two
girls drove onward in silence, each happy in her own thoughts, in the
sunshine, in the sweet, balmy air, fragrant with the scent of the
flowering trees. Then of a sudden one of the lodges of the park came
into view, and on the roadside beside the door a dazzling golden object,
at sight of which Cornelia puckered puzzled brows.

"What in the land's name is that? The sun dazzles so that I can't see."

"It's a--a cage, I think! I see something like bars."

"What fool-trick are they up to, then, putting a gilt cage on the high
road in the blazing sunshine? They might use the sense they were born
with. Steady, old lady, steady!" cried Cornelia, soothingly, as the
mare pricked up her ears and shied uneasily to the farther side of the
road. "Yes, it's a cage right enough, and a poll parrot inside. Guess
I'll pull up at that house, and tell the inmates that it looks for all
the world like a blazing firework on the side of the path; enough to
scare any horse in creation. This old lady is as nervous as a cat!"

The fact was painfully apparent even to Elma's inexperience, for the
mare, refusing to be soothed by Cornelia's cajoling words and chuckles,
shied still nearer the opposite hedge, her ears cocked nervously erect.
Seen nearer at hand, and out of the direct dazzle of sunlight, the cage
looked innocent enough with its grey inmate swinging solemnly to and fro
on its perch, but as the cart swung rapidly past, Mistress Poll
evidently felt that it was time to assert herself, and opened her mouth
to emit a shrill, raucous cry, at the sound of which the mare bounded
forward in a headlong gallop.

"I knew it!" cried Cornelia, shortly. "I just guessed that had to come
next." She sat bolt upright, twisting the reins round her fingers, her
lips pressed into a thin red line, her eyes ashine with an excitement in
which was more than a spice of enjoyment. She shook herself impatiently
free from Elma's frenzied grasp. "Now, then, none of that! You leave
my arms alone. I'll need all my strength before we're through with this
trouble. My stars and stripes, how she does pull."

"Oh, oh, Cornelia! What shall we do? What shall we do? Shall we be
thrown? What's going to happen? _Cornelia_?"

Not by a fraction of an inch did Cornelia turn her head in answer to
this frenzied appeal. Upright as a dart she sat in her seat, her
slender wrists straining at the r