"Oh, my stars!" said Maggie, at last, as she stopped, panting, and leaned against a fence. "If you haven't got the seven-league boots on, Miss Randall, then I should like to know who has? You ought to go into training for a female pedestrian, and you would make your fortune in twenty-five-cent pieces. I declare I'm just about tired to death."
"Why, how thoughtless I am!" said Georgia, whose excited pace had scarcely kept time with her excited thoughts; "I forgot you could not walk as fast as I can. Suppose you sit down and rest, and I will wait."
"All right, then," said Maggie, as she clambered with great agility to the top of the fence and sat down on the top rail; "but 'Hold, Macduff! who comes here?'"
A sleigh came dashing along the road, drawn by a small, spirited horse that seemed fairly to fly. It was occupied by a gentleman wearing a large black cloak, and a fur cap drawn down over his brow.
As he reached them he turned round and glanced carelessly toward the two girls. For one instant his face was turned fully toward them, the next he was whirling away out of sight.
"Oh, how handsome! oh, isn't he beautiful?" exclaimed Maggie, clasping her hands enthusiastically; "such splendid eyes, and such a pale, handsome face, and such a glorious driver. My! how I would like to be in that sleigh with him. I would—wouldn't you, Miss Randall?"
She turned to Georgia, and fairly leaped off the fence in amazement to see her standing rigid and motionless, with wildly distended eyes and white, startled face, gazing after the object of Maggie's admiration.
"Why, Miss Randall! Miss Randall!" said Maggie, catching her arms, "what's the matter? Do you know him?"
"Let us go back, Miss Leonard," said Georgia, passing her hand over her eyes as if to dispel some wild vision.
Know him! Yes, as if they had parted but yesterday. Could Georgia forget Charley Wildair?