But he whipped up at that moment, and the noise of the cart drowned the dolorous complaints. The girls soothed their companion by assuring her that in ten minutes they would be home, when, most assuredly, her sister's heart would be moved to pity by their sorry plight and the tale of their adventures.
Just as they arrived at their own door they met Mademoiselle Loiré hurrying up, and her sister, thinking she was coming to look for them, and not knowing the reception she might get, fell upon her neck, pouring forth with incoherent sobs and explanations the tale of their woes.
Mademoiselle Loiré was most sympathetic and unreproachful, and, having dried her sister's tears, led her into the house, where the whole party sat down to cake and cider, under the influence of which Mademoiselle Thérèse quite recovered, and retold their adventures, Barbara realising for the first time, as she listened, what heroines they had been!
Their screaming advance along the highroad became a journey, where they sat grimly, with set teeth, listening to the curses of a madman, and bowing their heads to escape having them cut off repeatedly by the branches of trees.
Their ignominious exit from the cart on the hill became a desperate leap into the darkness, when the vehicle was advancing at full gallop; and when Barbara finally rose to say good-night, she felt as if they had all been princesses in a fairy-tale, in which, alas! there had been no prince.
She learned two things on the morrow—not counting the conviction that riding at a gallop in a cart made one desperately stiff. The first was from Marie, who told her that Mademoiselle Loiré's forbearance with their late return, and her intense sympathy with their adventures, probably arose from the fact that she had just been returning from her own expedition when she met the wanderers, and had been filled with very similar fears concerning her reception as those which had filled her sister's heart.
The other fact, which Barbara read aloud to Mademoiselle Thérèse from the newspaper, was that Jean Malet had been apprehended for furious driving at a late hour the previous night, and would have to pay a heavy fine.
"How he had come safely through the streets at such speed," said the journalist, "was a miracle. Fortunately, there was no one in the cart but himself."
"Fortunately, indeed, there was not," remarked Barbara, folding up the paper.