"Now! Again!" cried Ida, and the process was repeated, this time the horse backing himself out of the water.
"Bravo!" cried Lanigan Beam, who, with Walter Lodloe, had arrived on the scene just as Calthea Rose and Ida Mayberry had made their second graceful descent from an elevated spoke to the ground.
XV
THE BABY IS PASSED AROUND
"Good for you, Calthy," cried Lanigan Beam, advancing with outstretched hands. "How do you do? Old Sultan is at his tricks again, is he, declining to back? But you got the better of him that time, and did it well, too."
In his admiration of the feat he had witnessed, the credit of which he gave entirely to his old and well-tried fiancée, Lanigan forgot for the moment his plan for the benefit of Lethbury.
Irritated and embarrassed as she was, Miss Calthea did not forget her intention of treating Lanigan Beam as a person between whom and herself there could be nothing of a connecting order which could be set up as something of an obstructing order between herself and any one else. She therefore took his hand, made a few commonplace remarks about his return, and then, excusing herself, approached Mrs. Cristie, who was just about to alight from the phaeton, and gave her the invitation to drive to Romney. That lady hesitated a few moments, and then, remembering some shopping she would like to do, accepted; and the attention of Miss Mayberry having been called to the baby-carriage behind the tree, the two ladies drove off.
Ida Mayberry gazed for a moment at the parting vehicle, and then, turning to Mr. Beam, she said: