e
did not care how soon we got home. The lady saw this, and said:

"Come, our chariots are ready, and our horses caparisoned."

That is a first-rate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and he
liked her for using it, though he wondered why she said chariots. When
we got back to the inn I saw her dog-cart was there, and a grocer's cart
too, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it. She took the girls in her
cart, and the boys went with the grocer. His horse was a very good one
to go, only you had to hit it with the wrong end of the whip. But the
cart was very bumpety.

The evening dews were falling--at least, I suppose so, but you do not
feel dew in a grocer's cart--when we reached home. We all thanked the
lady very much, and said we hoped we should see her again some day. She
said she hoped so.

The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the lady and
kissed her, according as we were boys or girls, or little boys, she
touched up her horse and drove away.

She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done waving,
and were turning into the house, Albert's uncle came into our midst like
a whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt had no stud in at the
neck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his hands were inky, and we
knew he had left off in the middle of a chapter by the wildness of his
eye.

"Who was that lady?" he said. "Where did you meet her?"

Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the story
from the beginning.

"The other day, protector of the poor," he began, "Dora and I were
reading about the Canterbury pilgrims--"

Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his instructions
about beginning at the beginning had borne fruit, but instead he
interrupted.

"Stow it, you young duffer! Where did you meet her?"

Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, "Hazelbridge."

Then Albert's uncle rushed up-stairs three at a time, and as he went he
called out to Oswald:

"Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tire."

I am sure Oswald was as quick as any one could have been, but long ere
the tire was thoroughly blowed Albert's uncle appeared, with a
collar-stud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenched the
unoffending machine from Oswald's surprised fingers.

Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tire, and then, flinging himself
into the saddle, he set off, scorching down the road at a pace not
surpassed by any h