It was a risky drive with restive beasts along that cliff with so slight a railing, and the archives of the town told how one Sir Rumble Thornton had gone over with his curricle and pair on to the shingle below, to be killed with his horses. But Cora Dean and her mother thought only of making a show, and the well-bred little ponies seemed to be kept thoroughly in hand by their mistress, though they were fretting and champing their bits and sending flakes of foam all over their satin coats. "I'm getting used to it now, Cora, my dear," panted the old woman. "I don't feel so squirmy inside, and as if I should be obliged to go home for a drop of brandy. Humph! I wish you wouldn't bow to him." "Why not? He's our neighbour," said Cora tartly, as Richard Linnell took off his hat. "He's the most thorough gentleman in this town." "P'raps he is, but I don't think anything of such gentlemen as he is-- now Betsy, do a' done. Don't drive like that. I was getting used to it, but now you've made my pore 'art fly up into my mouth." A sharp snatch at the reins had made the ponies rear up, and Richard Linnell, who was looking after them, started to go to Cora's help, but a cut of the whip sent the two ponies on again, and the carriage spun along, past the wide opening to the pier, down which Richard Linnell turned to think out how he might get over the prejudice he knew that Mr Denville had against him, and to wonder why Claire had grown so cold and strange. "I am getting well used to it now, Betsy," said Mrs Dean, as they drove right along the London road for a mile or two; "but, I say, hadn't you better turn their heads now? Let's get back on the cliff, where they can see us. I hate these fields and hedges. Let's go back by the other road, down by Lord Carboro's house, and through the street down to the pier." "Very well," said Cora shortly; and she turned the ponies, and took the upper road. Now, it so happened that after a short promenade Lord Carboro' had found out that it was going to rain, by a double barometer which he carried in his boots. "Confound these corns!" he grumbled. "Ah, Barclay," he cried to a thick-set man whom he met at that moment, "collecting your dues? It's going to rain." "Yes, my lord. My corns shoot horribly." "So do mine; doosid bad. I'm going to get the carriage and have a drive. Can't walk." He nodded and went back to his handsome house and grounds, contenting himself with sitting down in the lodge portico while the gardener's wife ordered the carriage to be got ready. "It isn't handsome, but it suits me," his lordship used to say, "and it's comfortable. If I can't have things as I like with my money, and at my time of life, why it's doosid strange." So he waited till a groom brought the carriage down the drive, and then looked at it as it came.