latform.
"Why, Duncan Grahame! Where in heaven's name did you come from?"

"From London, to see you, but I don't seem to be expected," replied
Duncan.

"I forgot to tell Helen I had asked you, but it's all right," called
Harry Osgood from his high seat.

"Of course it is," replied his wife, "but I wish you wouldn't shock me
so again. I thought I had seen a ghost."

"Never mind ghosts, but get the people up," said her husband.

Harry Osgood's char-a-bancs was a vehicle he had had constructed for use
over the rough country roads. It was built somewhat like the two boots
of a drag put together without the body, and had seats for ten persons,
besides the servants, placed in three rows, and all facing forward,
while its lightness rendered it very convenient for the purpose for
which it was designed. The servants stowed the luggage away and Mrs.
Osgood assigned places to the party. The elder Miss Simpson was given
the box seat, the next was occupied by Reine Merrit, Waterman,
Howard-Jones, and the younger Miss Simpson, while Miss Warner, Van Vort,
Duncan and Helen Osgood mounted to the remaining one.

"Let em go," shouted Osgood as he shoved the brake back. The grooms
jumped from the horses heads, the wheelers sprang into their collars,
and the trap rolled away from the station. "Oakhurst," the Osgood place,
was a short four miles distant, and the road, a fairly good one for
America, ran, for the most part, through a forest of maples, broken here
and there by the country seat of some New Yorker, or an occasional farm.
The country was quite rolling, and the road, running as it did over a
succession of small hills, made the driving a delight to Harry Osgood.
He was a coachman who had learned his trade in England, and having been
a subscriber to the _Guildford Coach_ for two seasons, he was able to
"sit his bench" like a veteran, and work his team with the smartness of
one who has done "out of London roading"; but, with all his experience
he was not a careful workman. He invariably made the four miles, from
the station to his house, a galloping stage, and it was his pride to do
the distance just under the twenty minutes; so, as soon as he turned the
corner by the red barn, he sprang his team into a gallop, and they
scarcely trotted another step of the way. Up hill and down the horses
scampered, while the trap rocked like a ship at sea, now to this side
and now to that, and when rounding the corners it often seemed as thoug