"He shook me up half an hour later, and stood laughing at me. 'Upset?' he said. 'No; we shed a tire and went off into a field, but it didn't hurt the machine, so we righted her and came in.' He was limping and bruised and scratched, but he was laughing, while a crowd of people were trying to shake hands with him and say things. I felt--funny; as if I wasn't much good. I never felt like that before. 'This is only practise,' he said, when I was about to go. 'The race to-morrow will do better. We find it more exciting than cocktails.' That was all, but I knew what he meant, all right. I've been careful ever since. He won the race next day, too." "Dick, didn't it ever occur to you that you as well as Mr. Lestrange might do real things?" she asked, after a moment. He turned his round, good-humored face to her in boundless amazement. "I? I race cars and break my neck and call it fun, like Lestrange? You're laughing at me, Emily." "No, no," in spite of herself the picture evoked brought her smile. "Not like that. But you might be interested in the factory. You might learn from Mr. Bailey and take charge of the business with Uncle Ethan. It would please uncle, _how_ it would please him, if you did!" [Illustration] Dick stirred unhappily. "It would take a lot of grind," he objected. "I haven't the head for it, really. I'm not such an awfully bad lot, but I hate work. Let's not be serious, cousin. How pretty the frosty wind makes you look!" Emily tightened the reins with a brief sigh of resignation. "Never mind, Dickie. I--uncle will find a substitute. Things must go on somehow, I suppose, even if we do not like the way." But the way loomed distasteful that morning as never before. IV Mr. Ffrench and his niece were at breakfast, on the Sunday when the first account of the Georgia race reached Ffrenchwood. "You will take fresh coffee," Emily was saying, the little silver pot poised in her hand, when the door burst open and Dick hurried, actually hurried, into the room. "He's won! He's got it!" he cried, brandishing the morning newspaper. "The first time for an American car with an American driver. And how he won it! He distanced every car on the track except the two big Italian and French machines. Those he couldn't get, of course; but the Frenchman went out in the fourth hour with a broken valve. Then he was set down for second place--second place, Emily, with every other big car in the country entered. They say he drove like, like--I don't know what. A hundred and some miles an hour on the straight stretches." "Oh," Emily faltered, setting down the coffee-pot in her plate. He stopped her eagerly, half turning toward Mr. Ffrench, who had put on his pince-nez to contemplate his nephew in stupefaction, not at his statement, but at his condition.