rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess, Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me accordingly." Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking about him. The afternoon was declining, and the loveliness of the landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply, disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the driver,--and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight. "There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud, still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"--this, as he saw his canine foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose all a-quiver with anxiety,--"it's just as well for you that you've got a wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"