“Meaning the lady, Doc?” asked Johnny anxiously. “There's a wet bit there under the elms, Doc, remember. It would be a pity to splash any mud on her!” He glanced toward the porch, his freckled face eloquent of his admiration for the figure which was the centre of the group gathered there. Burns's eyes followed his. Bob, a picturesque, small person in his wedding attire of white linen, was attempting to tie Ellen's motor-veil for her, as she stooped, smiling, to the level of his eager little arms. It occurred to both master and man, as they watched the child's efforts to adjust the floating chiffon, that veils, however useful, were to be regretted when they were allowed even partially to obscure faces like those of Red Pepper's wife. “I meant the car, lad,” explained Burns, laughing. “You've done a great piece of work an her since I brought her home this afternoon. I'm afraid you've done some last polishing with your wedding clothes on, Johnny. Here's something to take the spots out.” “Oh, Doc!” breathed the boy. “Not to-night, Let me do it--for you--and her.” The money went back into Burns's pocket, and his hand met Johnny's in a hearty grasp. “That's better yet,” said he, “and thank you, John. If anybody but you were sending me off I'd ask if everything was surely in the car But I'll not even ask you.” “You don't need to,” vowed the boy proudly. “And there's some things in you don't need to know about, just extrys in case of breakdown.” “Now, that,” said his employer, “is what call proving one's self a friend.” The Imp went cautiously through the “wet bit,” for it lay under the corner arc-light, and Johnny Caruthers would be watching. But, once on the open road outside the village, the pace quickened. For late April the roads were not bad, and if they had been sloughs the Imp could have pulled through them. She had a great power hidden away in those six cylinders of hers, had the Imp. “You'll not mind if I stop at the hospital as we go through?” questioned Burns. “Then we'll be off, out the old west road, out of reach of telephones and summonses of any sort. But I shall be just that much easier.” “Do stop, please. I'm sure you'll be more satisfied and so shall I.” She sat quietly in the car while he was gone looking up at the lighted windows and thinking all sorts of sympathetic thoughts concerning those inside--yet with a tiny fear in her heart that he would find some new and unavoidable duty to detain him. If he should-- But he was back, and as the Imp's searchlight fell upon his face, returning, she read there that he was free. “Doing well, everything satisfactory, and I've not a care in the world,” he exulted as he leaped in. “Now we're off, and never a stop till we've put a wide space between us and the rest of them.”