"I must have heard of you," she said. "You are really very kind, and, perhaps--" Imogen had run off; in an instant she reappeared. "The back seat of your dogcart, or whatever it is--it's larger than a dogcart, isn't it?"--she said, "is a very good size, larger than usual. You would be quite comfortable in it, mamma, and then," she went on, turning confidingly to Major Rex, "she wouldn't _see_ the horse whatever he did. Then you'd be all right, wouldn't you, dear? You know we should be really safe." And so it was arranged. Imogen's first care, it must be owned, was for her mother; to Mrs Wentworth were appropriated the best of the wraps and rugs and mackintoshes disinterred from their own travelling gear, or extricated from some mysterious inner receptacle of the "trap," by the obliging Smith. And as the rain was evidently clearing, the prospects in every sense grew brighter, as Imogen stepped back a pace or two to contemplate admiringly the result of their joint efforts in the person of Mrs Wentworth, so swathed and packed that really, as her daughter said, she "couldn't get wet if she tried, and _certainly_ couldn't fall out." "And what about yourself, Miss Wentworth?" said Major Winchester kindly, as he seconded Smith in his efforts to tuck up the young lady, if not so completely as her mother, yet sufficiently to keep her dry. "Have you no objection to watching Paddy's antics?" for a dance or two and a playful plunge showed that the "old man" was not as yet entirely exorcised from the young horse. But he was well under control. No sooner had they started than it became evident that Paddy knew who held the reins. They went fast but steadily; notwithstanding the cold, and the rain, and the mist--now slowly rising on all sides, for the freshening breeze to chase it away--the sensation was exhilarating and exciting. "I," replied the girl, after a moment's silence, given to watching Paddy gradually settling to work like a child after a feint of resistance; "I! no, of course I'm not frightened--It's delightful," and her glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes showed that she meant what she said. She did look exceedingly pretty just then. "What a charming child!" thought Rex. "Quite as plucky as even bold Trixie herself, and so simple and unspoilt and refined. I only hope that two or three weeks hence, if they stay as long, I may be able to say as much of her." He glanced at her involuntarily, with a certain look of anxiety in his kind eyes. "I'm all right, thank you," said Imogen, detecting the glance. "I'm not getting a bit wet."