"I would have sent her
into town or taken her."

"I had not formulated it in my mind," said Miriam. "Will you take her
with you to-day? I know that she has made up her mind she cannot wait any
longer for the doctor to come."

"Of course I will take her," said Ralph. "Will you ask her to get ready?
Tell her I shall be at the door in ten or fifteen minutes."

Ralph's tone was perfectly good-humored, but Miriam fancied that she
perceived a trace of disappointment in it. She was sorry for this, for
she could not imagine why any man should object to have Cicely Drane as a
companion on a drive, unless his mind was entirely occupied by some other
girl; and if Ralph's mind was thus occupied, it must be by Dora
Bannister, and that did not please her. So she resolutely put aside all
Cicely's suggestions that it might be inconvenient for Mr. Haverley to
take her with him, and deftly overcame Mrs. Drane's one or two impromptu,
and therefore not very well constructed, objections to the acceptance of
the invitation; and in the gig Cicely went with Ralph to Thorbury.

After having left the secretary to attend to her business at the
doctor's house, Ralph drove to the Bannister's; but Dora would not see
him, and technically was not at home. Alas! She had seen him driving past
with Miss Drane, and she was angry. This was contrary to the plan of
action she had adopted; but her eighteen-year-old spirit rebelled, and
she could not help it. A more hideous trap than that old gig could not be
imagined, but she had planned a drive in it with Ralph on some of the
quiet country roads beyond Cobhurst. They would take Congo with them, and
that would be such a capital plan to teach the dog to follow his new
master. And now it was the Drane girl who was driving with him in his
gig. She could not go down and see him and meet him in the way she liked
to meet him.

Miss Panney, on the other side of the street, had been passing the
Tolbridge house at the moment when Ralph and Cicely drove up. She
stopped for a moment, her feelings absolutely outraged. It was not
uncommon for her to pass places at times when people were doing things
in those places which she thought they ought not to do; but this was a
case which roused her anger in an unusual manner. Whatever else might
happen at Cobhurst, she did not believe that that girl would begin so
soon to go out driving with him.

She had left her phaeton at a livery stable, and was on her way to the
Bann