In the meantime the subject of this conversation sat in the cart outside, enormously impressed by the importance of her position. To other children who passed the gate she nodded with an air of splendid condescension; they stared and stared and looked back enviously at the little Gascoigne girl all alone in a dogcart, holding the reins. Truly, these were some of Angela's proudest moments. But one acquaintance, a bare-legged, freckled boy, in a striped cotton suit, boldly walked up the drive between the shrubs, and proceeded to interview little Gascoigne. This intruder was Toady Dodd, a youth of eight, son of an impecunious house, and Angel's mortal enemy. "Hullo!" he shouted, standing with hands in pockets and legs wide apart; "what a swell we are, cocked up there!" "Yes—miles up above you," she retorted sharply; "run away and steal some more macaroons," a malicious reminder of some past evil deed. "Are you going to drive?" he inquired, calmly ignoring the rude suggestion, "or are you just there for show?" Angel gave a brief nod. "_What_ a show!" cried Toady, cutting a caper, and making a series of hideous grimaces. Angel now leant over and lifted the whip out of its socket, and began to handle it significantly. "You're afraid to drive, ain't you?" he screamed. No reply; his adversary was far too proud to record her promise. "Drive out of the gate and back," urged the tempter, "and I'll never say you're a coward again." "I'm not a coward, you ugly, freckled toad," she screamed. "If you don't mind, I shall hit you with the whip." "First catch me," he shouted derisively, executing a war dance just out of reach. Come now—I dare you—dare you—to hit the horse." To touch Sally with the whip was not driving, argued the child with herself; and consumed by a feminine desire to show off, and exasperated by her tormentor, with a force really intended for _him_, she brought the lash suddenly down on Sally's shining flank. Instantly there was a vicious bang against the splash-board; Angel felt herself shot into the air, and remembered no more. The shrieks of Toady, the yells of the syce, and the sound of thundering hoofs summoned Gascoigne to the steps. There he saw the syce picking himself up with great care, he saw a white bunch and two black legs in the middle of a croton bush, he saw a great cloud of dust flying down the road—and that was all! He ran to the shrub and disentangled Angel, who had gone in head foremost and was merely stunned and speechless. The servant, however, found his tongue, when he discovered that his injuries were not mortal. "Missy Baba—beating with whip—horse done gone!" Such was his brief explanation.