at her any more than he does at me?" she
murmured in Winifred Chester's ear.

"I doubt it, my dear. But he'll be foolish if he doesn't, won't he?"

"I don't care for widows myself."

"I presume not." Winifred laughed comprehendingly.

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-eight, I believe--though she doesn't look it."

"Doesn't look it! She looks a lot more."

Winifred laughed still, quietly. Although Pauline undoubtedly had
the advantage of Ellen in years, her fair-haired, blue-eyed, somewhat
sumptuous beauty was not of so youthful a type as the darker colouring
and slenderer outlines of Martha's sister.

The man at the wheel of the brown car lifted his leather cap as the
women came out, but he left all the bestowal of them to the other
men. Miss Hempstead asked to be allowed to sit beside the driver, but
Macauley vowed that on the first long run of his new machine he himself
should occupy that post of honour and interest.

"Coming back, then," insisted the girl, and Macauley agreed reluctantly.
Burns made no comment, but applied himself to his task--not only
then, but also for every minute of the seventy-five miles to their
destination.

"He might as well be a hired chauffeur," complained Miss Hempstead when,
during a stop of ten minutes on account of a switching freight train,
she had leaned forward and attempted in vain to carry on a conversation
with Burns. "That abstracted mood of his--is there any breaking into
it?"

"Fall out and break your collar-bone. He'll be all attention," advised
Chester.

"Thank you. I'm almost tempted to. Why don't you drive awhile, Mr.
Macauley, and give him a rest?"

"And let him sit here in the middle with you? He couldn't be pried loose
from that wheel now. Besides, I haven't driven this car yet, and she's
too different in her steering from my old one. I shouldn't like to try
with this crowd behind me."

They reached the distant city; drew up at the steps of the most
attractive hotel; went in to lunch. That is to say, all did this except
R. P. Burns. He remained in the garage in the rear where he had taken
the car, busying himself with some details of mechanism whose working
did not quite suit him. In spite of summons and appeals he continued to
work until the rest had finished; then he bolted in to wash off dust
and engine grease, ate his lunch in ten minutes--Macauley sitting by and
expostulating--and bolted out again.

"We're going to walk about a bit," Chester announced