"That is the road Sir Nigel wished us to drive; but you’ll require to use your whip if we are to be home before dark." "Never fear for that, Binns," said I, while leading the way in the tandem with Lady Louisa beside me, and no attendant or other companion, save Willie Pitblado, who had or had not ears and eyes just as occasion required, Mamma Chillingham believing the while that she was with other ladies in the close carriage. "Keep a tight hand on the leader, sir," whispered Pitblado; "she’s a blood mare, rather fresh from the stall, and overcorned a bit." "She is hard-mouthed," said I, "and pulls like the devil." "As for the wheeler, I think the splinter-bar is too low, and she kicks and shies at it; but the breeching is as short as we could make it. Keep a sharp look out on both, sir," said he, warningly, and then relapsed into apparent immobility. For the _first_ time since our introduction had I been alone with Lady Louisa—I say alone, for I did not count on my servant, who seemed wholly intent on looking anywhere but at us, and chiefly behind, as if to see how soon we could distance the four-in-hand drag and the rest of our party. The vehicle we occupied was a hybrid affair, which my uncle frequently used, half gig and half dog-cart, four-wheeled, with Collinge’s patent axles, lever drag, and silver lamps, smart, strong, light, and decidedly "bang up." We went along at a spanking pace. My fair companion was chatty and delightfully gay; her dark eyes were unusually bright, for the whole events of the day, and the lunch _al fresco_, had all tended to exhilaration of spirits. She forgot what her rigid, aristocratic, and match-making mamma might think of her being alone thus with a young subaltern of lancers; but though her white ermine boa was not paler than her complexion usually was, she had now a tinge, almost a flush, on her soft, rounded cheek that made her radiantly beautiful, and I felt that now or never was the time to address her in the language of love. I knew that the crisis had come; but how was I to approach it? *CHAPTER XI.* The rocky guardians of the clime Frown on me, as they menaced death; While echoing still in measured time The gallop of my courser’s hoof, They hoarsely bid me stand aloof. Where goest thou, madman? Where no shade Of tree or tent shall screen thy head. Still on—still on; I turn my eyes— The cliffs no longer mock the skies: The peaks shrink back, and hide their brow, Each other’s lofty peaks below. FROM THE POETRY OF MICKIEWICZ. As if inspired by fortune, or my good genius, Lady Louisa began thus, in a low voice— "By the way, Mr. Norcliff, you were to have shown me the house in which Alexander Selkirk—or Robinson Crusoe—was born in 1676, I think you said?"