ould burst into irrepressible giggles each
time when, as they passed a street lamp, the ridiculously elongated
shadow of Dorothea and the chariot scurried noiselessly ahead of them
and was swallowed up in a stretch of darkness.

"My dear, I'm scared _pink_!" breathed Alma, pinching Nancy's arm in a
nervous spasm. "My tummy feels just as if I were going down in an
awfully quick elevator."

"I don't see what _you_ are scared about," replied Nancy. "_I_ almost
wish this regal conveyance of ours _would_ break down."

"It feels as if one of the wheels were coming off."

"I guess they are all coming off; but it's been like that since the
dark ages already, and I dare say it will last another century or so."

"Look! There's Uncle Thomas' house, now. Doesn't it look exactly like
something that Poe would write about? That one light burning in the
tower window, with all the rest of the house just a huge black shape,
is positively gruesome."

The two girls peered through the dirty little mica oval behind them at
the strange old mansion, the bizarre turrets of which were silhouetted
against the sky, where the edges of the dark clouds had parted, and the
horizon shone with a paler, sickly light.

"It is eerie looking. I suppose old Uncle T. is up in that room poring
away over his books, and the last thing he'd be thinking of is his two
charming nieces bouncing off to an evening of giddy pleasure in this
antique mail-cart, or whatever it is."

"Oh, my dear!" Alma squealed faintly. "We're getting there! Oh, look
at all the automobiles. We can't go in in this dreadful looking thing."

"All right. You can get out and walk. I say, do your hands feel like
damp putty?"

"_Do_ they! I feel as if I were getting the measles. Oh, here we are,
Nancy!" Alma's tone would have suggested that they had reached the
steps of the guillotine. Dorothea, alone, was unmoved, and almost
unmoving. With her poor old head dangling between her knees, she
crawled slowly along the broad, well-lighted driveway of a very new and
very imposing house, beset fore and aft by a train of honking and
rumbling motors. Nancy burst into a little breathy quaver of
hysterical laughter.

"We must try to be more like Dorothea," she giggled. "Her beautiful
composure is due either to an aristocratic pedigree or to her knowledge
that she is going to die soon, and all this is the vanity of a world
which passes."

In spite of their inner agony of shyn