contract. Strange how things fall out, isn't it?"
Altogether we were awfully good friends by the time we reached the county road, where Mr. Marsden promised to push Dandy Dick till I could get in the high-speed clutch for what we hoped was the last time. It was good running from there home, you know, and he was to tail along behind, besides, to keep an eye on me. But, of course, it meant saying good-by right there, because if Dandy once got moving there was no stopping her till I got into papa's barn. Mr. Marsden wasn't over-willing to begin, and got very miserable and downhearted, especially when I told him that it wouldn't do for us ever to meet again.
"They might say I was meeting you clandestinely," I said, "and then I'd just lie down and die of mortification. You don't know what a nest of gossips we live in, nor how they tear girls limb from limb. And that's without counting papa, for Heaven only knows what he'd do to me."
55
