CHAPTER III.
A DRIVE AND A SLICE OF CAKE.
With one thing and another Jabez was so agitated as to be quite incapable of hurrying, and Kitty, who could harness or unharness a horse as well as any one, had to help him.

She fastened the trace on one side, buckled up the girths, and finally clambered up into the carriage while Jabez was still fumbling with the bit and the reins.

She caught the braid of her frock in the step as she mounted, and ripped down many inches of it, but that did not trouble her at all.
"Have you got a knife in your pocket, Dan ?" she asked calmly; and Dan not only produced a knife, but hacked off the hanging braid for her and threw it away.
"I do wish I could go too," said Betty wistfully.

"I'd love to drive all over the downs at night, particularly if there was a storm coming.
May I come too, Kitty ?" But Kitty, for several reasons, vetoed the suggestion.

For one thing she wanted to be alone with her father, to try her powers of argument and persuasion against the summoning of Aunt Pike and Anna into their midst; for another, she felt that to be driving in the dark, and probably through a storm, was responsibility enough, without the care of Betty added; and she felt, too, that though her father might be induced to let one of them go with him, he would, under such circumstances, shrink from the pleasure of their united company.
"No, Bet," she answered firmly, "you can't come to-night.