Edward and Helene were secretly glad of the presence of Rose. It was impossible to be frigidly formal with that sunny face beaming up now at one, then at the other. This deep young person had made up her mind that she would spare no pains to bring about a better state of feeling between the two. When conversation lagged or threatened to become formally precise, she gave utterance to some amazing piece of nonsense, which compelled a laugh from the others, or else indulged in prettily assumed alarm, lest their horse should prove untrustworthy. "When you see a horse's ears move," she declared, "it is a sign that he is vicious. Flip's ears were never still." "Why, Rose," cried her brother, "this horse is no more like Flip than an old cow is like a wild cat. Besides his ears don't move." "Oh, yes, they do," remarked Helene, with the calmness of scientific conviction. "When a horse moves his ears have got to move too. They are not detachable. It is the same with other animals." "Where is my note-book?" inquired Edward, after a fruitless search in his various pockets, while Rose observed "Well, you may say what you please, but I feel sure he is not safe." "Indeed, he isn't," echoed the driver. "He's liable to turn around any moment and bite you. It's a good thing the livery stable man hitched him up head first, else we might all have been devoured by the ferocious beast." Such pleasantries might have been indefinitely extended had not unusual sounds of mirth and minstrelsy coming from behind arrested their attention. "Why, it is the Elmsleys," softly exclaimed Rose. "Dear me! I haven't seen Grace and Eleanor for months." These young ladies hailed her with every expression of delight as the carriages came to a stand-still together. They had a prodigious amount to say. At last, as the horses were growing restive, Mrs. Elmsley invited Miss Macleod to join their family party, as they also were on their way to York. "_Do_!" echoed the daughters, and Rose accepted with alacrity. "The horse we have isn't at all safe," she explained, "and I am quite nervous on the subject since my accident last summer." "Rose," demanded Helene, in a low aside, but with a tragic countenance, "you surely are not going to leave me?" The girl laughed as she accepted Mr. Elmsley's proffered assistance from one vehicle into the other. "Why, you are quite a grown woman," observed that gentleman, apparently much impressed by her mature