"In with you, quick, Emmie!" cried Vibert, with the eager impatience of one about to effect an escape. No sooner had the young lady taken her seat than Vibert sprang in after her, seized the reins, caught up the whip, and calling to the lad who had acted as hostler, "My brother will pay you," gave a sharp cut to the pony, which made the spirited little animal bound forward at a speed which raised a feeling of alarm in the timorous Emmie. "Stop, Vibert, stop! you must not drive off; you must wait for Bruce!" she exclaimed. "I'll wait for no one!" cried Vibert, still briskly plying the whip. "Bruce would be wanting to drive; but this time he has lost the chance,--ha! ha! ha! There's my brave little pony, does he not go at a spanking pace?" "I wish that you would not drive so fast, it frightens me!" cried Emmie. "Frightens you! nonsense, you little coward! Don't you see that thick bank of clouds in which the sun is setting? We'll have a thunderstorm soon, and that will frighten you more." "Oh, I hope and trust that the storm will not burst till we reach shelter!" cried Emmie, whose dread of thunder and lightning is already known to the reader. "We are running a race with it, and we'll be at the winning-post first!" exclaimed Vibert, who was enjoying the excitement, and who was rather amused than vexed to see his sister's alarm. "But, Vibert, you don't even know the way to Myst Court! Oh, I wish that you had waited for Bruce!" It had never occurred to the thoughtless lad that he might be driving in a wrong direction; so long as the pony went as fast as Vibert wished, he had taken it for granted that Myst Court would soon be reached. The station had been left far behind; the road was lonesome and wild; only one solitary boy was in sight; he was engaged in picking up boughs and twigs which a recent gale had blown down from the trees which bordered the way. "We'll ask yonder bare-footed bundle of rags to direct us," said Vibert, and he drew up the panting pony when he reached the spot where the boy was standing. "I say, young one, which is the way to Myst Court?" asked Vibert in a tone of command. The boy stared at him, as if unaccustomed to the sight of strangers. "Are we on the right road to the large house where Mrs. Myers used to live?" inquired Emmie. "Ay, ay, but you'll have to turn down yon lane just by the stile there," said the urchin, pointing with his brown finger, and grinning as if a chaise with a lady in it were a rare and curious sight. "I don't believe that the rustic could have told us whether to turn to left or right," said Vibert, as he whipped on the pony. "If he's a fair specimen of my father's tenants, we shall feel as if we had dropped down on the Fiji Islands."