"Will you hand it to me? It is in the little bag there on the seat."
Sandy rushed to do her bidding. He was rather hazy as to the object of his search; but when his fingers touched a round, soft ball he drew it forth and hastily presented it to the lady's Roman nose.
She, with closed eyes, was taking deep whiffs when a laugh startled her.
"Oh, Aunt Clara, it's your powder-puff!" cried Ruth, unable to restrain her mirth.
Mrs. Nelson rose with as much dignity as her draggled condition would permit. "You'd better get me home," she said solemnly. "I may be internally injured."
She turned to Sandy. "Boy, can't you get that phaéton back on the road?"
Sandy, whose chagrin over his blunder had sent him to the background, came promptly forward. Seizing the wheel, he made several ineffectual efforts to lift it back to the road.
"It is not moving an inch!" announced the mournful voice from above. "Can't you take hold of it nearer the back, and exert a little more strength?"
Sandy bit his lip and shot a swift glance at Ruth. She was still smiling. With savage determination he fell upon the wheel as if it had been a mortal foe; he pushed and shoved and pulled, and finally, with a rally of all his strength, he went on his knees in the mud and lifted the phaéton back on the road.
Then came a collapse, and he leaned against the nearest tree and struggled with the deadly faintness that was stealing over him.