At precisely four o’clock Jeff drove the hotel carriage up to the door with a flourish and a feint as if it were hard to hold the horses, who looked like anything but runaways and would have dropped their heads if they had not been checked so high. Jeff had spent two hours in scrubbing the carriage, polishing the harness and rubbing down the horses. His divinity, Miss Alice, was going to drive, and there was nothing too good for her. Helen had not impressed him as favorably as her cousin. “She don’t look as real as my girl,” he had thought when he first saw her, and he never had cause to change his opinion. At intervals Uncle Zach had superintended the washing and polishing and rubbing of the turnout which he said couldn’t be beaten outside of Worcester, and he waited with a good deal of pride for the effect it would have upon the young ladies. Alice was the first to appear, looking very cool and fresh and pretty in her dark blue serge made over from a last year’s dress, and adapted as nearly as possible to the prevailing style. She was a natural dressmaker and had given her costume a few touches of her own ideas. Like Uncle Zach Jeff thought her a daisy, and although Craig and Mark were both there, the former fastening his gloves and the latter holding the reins by the horses’ heads, he gallantly helped her to the back seat and smoothed down her dress with the air of a much older person. Then they waited five minutes and ten minutes until the young men began to get impatient. They did not know that Helen was seldom on time. She had taken her after dinner nap and bath and had dawdled in her dressing, notwithstanding Celine’s efforts to hurry her. When at last she did appear she was like a picture stepping out of a fashion plate. Her tailor made dress and jacket were without a flaw in style and fit, her gloves harmonized perfectly with her dress, and the soft light veil twisted around her sailor hat and tied in a big bow under her chin was very becoming. In the morning she had worn Mark’s rose; this afternoon she had a great clump of the _fleurs-de-lis_, Craig’s color, fastened to her dress. “Have I kept you waiting long? I am very sorry,” she said, with such an air of penitence that both Craig and Mark forgave her, assuring her that it was of no consequence. “Alice, I know, thinks me delinquent,” she said. “She is always on time; always doing the right thing.” “That’s so,” came from Jeff, who emphasized his words with a sudden whopover on the grass. They all laughed, Helen the most of all. “You see you have an admiring champion,” she said to Alice; then to Mark, “You are to drive, I conclude.” “Yes, I go in the capacity of driver and guide, as I know all the points of interest,” he replied, and Helen continued, “I suppose you and Mr. Mason should sit on the front seat, and Alice and I on the back, but I want to drive part of the time, and if you do not mind I will sit with you.”