Jemima sat upon her horse, petrified with amazement. Her father looked anxiously back when he reached the widow, with sad forebodings of the tempest that would follow, but there the spinster sat at the cross roads like an equestrian statue. "Come, come," said the widow, touching him playfully with her whip. "Elsie is getting impatient. Now for a race." Her spirited horse dashed forward at a run. The ponderous steed of the widower thundered after, making the forest reverberate with the heavy fall of his hoofs. Mr. Hawkins fell into a dainty amble, and away the whole party swept into the green shadows of the woods. Jemima looked right and she looked left. Should she ride on and leave her pa in the hands of that designing creature? Perish the thought, better anything than that! She touched her horse. It turned sharply, and swept down the highway like a greyhound. She struck him on the flank, then the tiny lash of her whip quivered about his ears till he dashed on, flinging back dust and stones with his hoofs. The party was riding fast. Mr. Hawkins by Elsie, Mr. Rhodes close to the widow--so close, that somehow her right hand, whip and all, had got entangled with his. They were on a curve of the road, around which Jemima came sweeping like a torrent. With a single bound her horse rushed in between them, leaving the widow's gauntlet glove in the grasp of that frightened man, and the cornelian-headed whip deep in the mud of the highway. Not a word was spoken. The widower sank abjectly down in his saddle, and with his apprehensive eyes turned sideways on the spinster, surreptitiously thrust the stray glove into the depths of his pocket. The widow, convulsed with mingled laughter and rage, gave no doubt of genuine color now, for her face was crimson. Thus, like two prisoners under military guard, they moved on, with Jemima riding in grim vigilance between them. The spot chosen for the chowder-party commanded a splendid sea view and a broad landscape in the background, of which the distant mansion of Piney Cove was a principal object. It was an abrupt precipice, clothed, except in the very front, with a rich growth of trees; splendid masses of white pine and clumps of hemlock darkened with the deep green of their foliage such forest trees as cast their leaves from autumn till spring time. The broken precipice in front was tufted here and there with clumps of barberry bushes and other wild shrubs, which might have aided a daring adventurer to climb up it, had the temptation been sufficient. Between this precipice and the shores of the ocean, stood the little tavern we have before spoken of, from which the negroes of Piney Point were now bringing up a huge iron pot wherein to cook the chowder, which would be nothing if not culminated in the open air, over a fire of sticks, and eaten beneath the hemlock trees.