Too late! Going at great speed, the car smashed squarely into the stump of a tree, stood up on its hind feet, and threw a great part of its load over its head. Then it stood still and waited.
Bess was the first to reach the scene of disaster, and she was dismayed. There was a little red lacquer cabinet in splinters; there were books with the pages fluttering away; a china clock was shattered to pieces; the ground was strewn with wreckage.
“Oh, what a pity!” she cried. “I’m so sorry! Such pretty things!”
“Never mind!” said the woman, cheerfully. “Some of them were broken, anyhow; and I don’t believe in caring too much about things, do you?”
Struck by this philosophic point of view, Bess turned toward the speaker, and found her still smiling. She was not a pretty woman. She was small and pale and freckled, and her reddish hair was growing gray; but that smile offers was a thing rarer than youth or beauty.
“I like her!” thought Bess.
The two men had begun to stow the débris into the car in a way that caused anguish to the girl’s orderly spirit.
“Have you much farther to go?” she asked anxiously. “Because, if the things are packed like that, I’m afraid they’ll fall out.”
“My dear,” said the woman, “I don’t know how far it is. I took the place, in blind faith, from an agent. It’s No. 9 Edgely Road.”
“Oh, but that’s right there!” cried Bess, pointing. “That house, where I live!”