On this occasion we had a grand turnout of drags, postilions _à la demi d’Aumont_, and tandems. I led the cotillion myself, dancing in the large drawing-room of the inn; and it all went so charmingly that it was late into the night when we left the place. It was as dark as Erebus. We had eleven miles to drive, and I saw that some of our four-in-hand drivers felt a little squeamish. My old bachelor friend had in his drag a precious cargo. On the box-seat with him sat our nightingale, and I had in my four-seated open wagon our queen of society and a famous Baltimore belle. “Is the road straight or crooked?” I was asked, on all sides. Having danced myself nearly to death, and being well fortified with champagne, I found it straight as an arrow, as I was then oblivious to its crooks and turns. Off we all started up the hill at a canter. I remember my friend, the Major, shouting to me, “The devil take the hindmost,” and the admonition to him of his old family coachman, who accompanied him that day, “Be careful, sir, the road is not as straight as it might be.” Driving along at a spanking pace, the horses fresh, the ladies jubilant, I as happy as a lord,--there was a scream, then another, then a plunge, and a splash of water. Dark as it was, standing up in my wagon, I shouted, “By Jove! he has driven off the bridge,”--and off the bridge he was, drag upset and four horses mired in mud and water. One young fellow, in the excitement of the moment, sprang to the side of my wagon, and tried to wrench off one of my lamps. How then I admired the plucky, cool little woman at my side! She never lost her presence of mind for a second; gave directions quietly and effectively, and soon brought order out of chaos. From a jolly, festive procession, we were turned into a sad, melancholy species of funeral cortège. The ladies were picked out of the wreck, and placed in the different drags and wagons, and we wended on our way at a walk, ten dreary miles to Newport. One brilliant youth of the Diplomatic Corps, as we passed a farm-house, making it just out in the dark, was asked to procure for our invalids a glass of water. He rushed to the house, banging against the door, and shouting, “House, house, house, wont you hear, wont you hear?” The old farmer poked his head out of the window, answering him, “Why, man, the house can’t talk! what do you want here at this time of night? I know who you are, you are some of McAllister’s picnickers. I saw you go by this morning. I s’pose you want milk, but you wont get a drop here.”