"The 'osses is tired, ma'am, no doubt, an' a long trashing day it's been for 'osses; but, bless ye, Ganymede, he won't take no notice; he'll have his head in the manger soon as ever his girths is slacked, and they're both of 'em as sound as when they left the stable. Ah! we've much to be thankful for, we have! but how you're to get to the station, ma'am, without a ducking--that's wot beats me!" "I must take my ducking, I suppose, James, and make the best of it," she answered, pleasantly; "but it's going to be a fearful night. It comes on worse every minute." James, who had dropped back a horse's length, now pressed eagerly forward. "I hear wheels, ma'am," said he, "and it's a'most a living certainty as they're going our way. If it was me, I'd make so bold as ask for a lift inside. Ganymede, he'll lead like a child, and you'll have all the more time to--to--shift yerself, ma'am, afore the train be due." While he spoke, a one-horse fly, with luggage on the top, halted at her side, a window was let down, and a pleasant woman's voice from within proffered, to the benighted lady on horseback, any accommodation in the power of the occupant to bestow. It was already too dark to distinguish faces; but the stranger's tones were courteous and winning. Mrs. Lascelles had no hesitation in availing herself of so opportune a shelter. The flyman was off his box in a twinkling, the lady leaped as quickly to the ground, James signified his approval, Ganymede gave himself a shake, and in another minute Mrs. Lascelles found herself jerking, jolting, and jingling towards the station by the side of a perfect stranger, whose features, in the increasing obscurity, she strove vainly to make out. Some indefinable instinct suggested to her, however, that her companion was young and pretty. A certain subtle fragrance which may or may not be the result of scents and essences, but which seems indigenous to all taking women, pervaded her gloves, her hair, her gown, nay, the very winter jacket with which she defied the cold. The rustle of her dress as she made room, the touch of her hand as she took sundry wraps from the front seat of the carriage and heaped them in her guest's lap, told Mrs. Lascelles that this errant damsel, wandering about in a hired fly through the rain, was one for whom lances had already been broken, and champions, it may be, laid gasping on the plain. For several seconds she racked her brains, wondering who and what the traveller could be, where coming from, where going to, why she had never met, nor heard of her before.