There were four of us. Lucy and Alice sat on the rear seat, Sthenelus and I in front, on a rather more elevated position. Returning from our drive, we are rapidly moving down Franklin Street. A heavy country wagon is just in front of us, and not far behind it, though rather on the other side of the street, another creeps along, both meeting us. The problem was to pass between them. One of those fellows who knows nothing about driving would have brought his horses down to a walk, and crept through in inglorious safety. Not so Sthenelus. With him glory was above safety; and so, leaning forward, he lightly agitated the reins along the backs of his rapid bays, and we whizzed past the first wagon. The next instant our charioteer went sprawling over the dashboard, carrying the reins with him; though I, foreseeing the collision with the second wagon, had braced myself for the shock, and so managed to retain my seat. The horses bounded instantly forward, and rushed down the street with an ever-increasing speed. The usual scene occurred. Ladies who chanced to be crossing the street, shrank back in terror to the sidewalk. Nurses scurried hither and thither, gathering up their charges. Men stood in the middle of the street, shouting and sawing their arms, waving hats, umbrellas, handkerchiefs, but getting out of the way just in time to let the more and more frantic horses pass; while troops of boys came rushing down every cross-street, their eyes a-glitter with barbaric joy, and shouting back the glad tidings to their toiling but shorter-legged comrades in the rear. Where do all the boys come from? But wild with terror as they were, the horses turned up the cross-street along which they had been driven earlier in the afternoon,—the one, that is, intersecting Leigh one block above the Carters’,—and up this they rushed with a terrific clatter. Meanwhile, I had not been idle. Immediately upon the fall of our charioteer and the bounding forward of the horses, both girls had sprung to their feet with a cry of horror; but I shouted to them to sit down, and they obeyed. Alice, however, with every jolt of unusual severity would rise and attempt to leap from the vehicle, and again and again I had to seize her and thrust her back into her seat. Lucy, on the contrary, gave me no further trouble. Ashy pale, with her hands clasped, she sat trembling and silent, her appealing eyes fixed upon me. At last I insisted upon their sitting upon the floor of the carriage, assuring them, in as confident a tone as I could muster, that there was no earthly danger if they would but resolutely hold that position; and in this, too, they obeyed me, though in Alice’s case I had to supplement my commands by a firm grip upon her shoulder.