efore breakfast.

"Mr. Bailey likes Mr. Lestrange," she commented.

"Likes him! He loves him. You know Lestrange lives with him; a
bachelor household, cozy as grigs."

Just past here ran the road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was
speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down
the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the
stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have
answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an appalling series
of explosions mingled with the grind of outraged machinery suddenly
braked, and some one shouted above the din. The next instant a huge
mass shot past the other side of the hedge and there followed a dull
crash.

"That's one of our men!" gasped Dick, and plunged headlong through the
shrubbery.

Dazed momentarily, Emily stood, then caught up her skirts and ran
after him. She knew well enough what the testers of the cars risked.

"Dick!" she appealed. "Dick!"

But it was not the wreck she anticipated that met her eyes as she came
through the hedge. On the opposite side of the road a long low
skeleton car was standing, one side lurched drunkenly down with two
wheels in the gutter. Still in his seat, the driver was leaning over
the steering-wheel, out of breath, but laughing a greeting to the
astonished Dick.

"A break in the steering-gear," he declared, by way of explanation. "I
told Bailey it was a weak point; now perhaps he'll believe me and
strengthen it."

"You're not hurt," Dick inferred.

"I think she's not--a tire gone. Find anything wrong, Rupert?"

"Two tires off," said the laconic mechanician. "Two funerals
postponed. That was a pretty stop, Darling."

"Very," coolly agreed Lestrange, rising and removing his goggles.
"What's the matter, Ffrench?"

"You frightened us out of our five senses, that's all. Do you usually
practise for races out here?"

"_Us?_" repeated Lestrange, and turning, saw the girl at the edge of
the park. "Miss Ffrench, I beg your pardon!"

The swift change in his tone, the ease of deference with which he
bared his head and, motor caps not being readily donned or doffed, so
remained bareheaded in the bright sunlight, savored of the Continent.

"It is too commonplace to say good morning," Emily replied, her color
rising with her smile. "I am very glad you escaped. But that is
commonplace, too, I'm afraid."

"Every one is commonplace before breakfast," reassured her cousin.