Lucy laughed aloud. “Isn’t he silly?” And then waved once more.
“Honk!”
“Whoa!” commanded Miss Herron, drawing her steeds to the side of the road. “Stand still, and don’t be so foolish. It’s only”—she hesitated, then pronounced the word as though it profaned her speech—“an automobile.”
“May I pass you?” came the driver’s voice from behind. The choking reek of the gas drifted down and enveloped them.
“It’s all right,” caroled Lucy. “Come ahead!” Then she dropped down to her seat beside her companion, light as a sparrow.
“Is it coming?”
The horses snorted, swerved, and plunged heavily. There swept by a vision of dark green and shining brass, the chuck-chuck-chuck of machinery.
“Oh, do be careful, Arch!” cried Lucy, for the ponderous machine ground through the soft bank that hemmed in the road on that side, and canted dangerously for a second or two. Then it whirled up the road, with the dust thick in its trail, and through the haze the driver’s yellow head shining. The fat horses shivered, and stood fast.
“The wretch! I knew it was young Fraser.”
“It wasn’t like him,” Lucy murmured, and a hint of a smile crossed her lips, “to have driven by us so fast.”