Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine. His labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her French maid Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle Therese was venal, like all her class, but in this instance I fear she was not bribed by British gold. Strange as it may seem to the British mind, it was British genius, British eloquence, British thought, that brought her to the feet of this young savan. “I believe,” said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in a glowing eulogium upon the skill of “M. Leetell,”—“I believe you are in love with this professor.” A quick flush crossed the olive cheek of Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered. The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered, impatient and scornful as the pig-headed public are apt to be. In the open area a long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna sausage, swayed above the machine, from which, like some enormous bird caught in a net, it tried to free itself. A heavy rope held it fast to the ground. Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady Caroline’s among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a moment he was at her side. “I should like so much to get into the machine,” said the arch-hypocrite demurely. “Are you engaged to marry young Raby?” said Little bluntly. “As you please,” she said with a curtsey; “do I take this as a refusal?” Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lap-dog into the car. “How nice! it won’t go off?” “No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in.” A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward. Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,—Little’s! But in the same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled from his feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into space. CHAPTER VII [Footnote: The right of dramatization of this and succeeding chapters is reserved by the writer.] Lady Caroline fainted. The cold, watery nose of her dog on her cheek brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of the car; she dared not look up to the bellowing monster above her, bearing her to death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car, and embraced the only living thing spared her,—the poodle. Then she cried. Then a clear voice came apparently out of the circumambient air,— “May I trouble you to look at the barometer?” She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a long rope. She put her head back again. In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the edge,—blissful sight. “Oh, please don’t think of coming up! Stay there, do!” Little stayed. Of course she could make nothing out of the barometer, and said so. Little smiled. “Will you kindly send it down to me?”