and I did nothing but scream, she jumped out, and ran to those dreadful ponies' heads, and talked to them, and quieted them, though they were kicking dreadfully; and when the groom came up she sent him off for a carriage, and warned him not to tell mamma what had happened. In short, she thought of everything, and I could not think of anything but how frightened I was."
"She did indeed behave gallantly," said Lord Beaufort; "and now let us walk on, for you are both getting wet. Luckily there is the carriage in sight."
So, leaving Colonel Beaufort's servant with the recusant ponies, they hurried on; the ladies were hurried into the carriage, and the gentlemen rode on with them. Lord Beaufort was much struck by Mary's presence of mind and cheerfulness in a situation that was trying, to say the least of it; and when the carriage stopped at the lodge gate, he rode up to the side on which she was seated, and said, in a tone of great interest, "May I ask how you feel? I fear you must be both cold and exhausted."
"Your sister is on the other side," she said. "Helen, Lord Beaufort has come to ask you how you are."
"She really believes," he thought with vexation, "that I have not the common feelings of humanity where she is concerned; that I cannot ask her a civil question. How provoking it is—and she looked so handsome too!" and by dint of assiduous thought on this subject, he arrived too late to hand her out, and saw her and his sister run quickly up-stairs to change their wet clothes, and to break their disaster to Lady Eskdale.
As no real harm had occurred, their adventures served as a relief to the gloomy cogitations of the evening over the state of the poll. Several gentlemen of the committee had been asked to dinner, and of course the conversation turned exclusively on the events of the morning; and at any other time the family would have been the first to
