“There’s Miss Lily, right in front of us!” cried Jane, “and I do believe that she’s wearing her Spanish costume after all!”
The Deacons, mother and daughter, were in fact being driven along by old Mr. Buchanan, who had gallantly placed its sleigh at the service of the two ladies. At the same time, to judge from Mrs. Deacon’s face, there seemed to be some reason for uneasiness in the chesterfieldian old man’s very zeal. He was an ardent, if not an exactly comfortable driver; he shouted to his horses and the two lean, shaggy animals alternately stopped short, and leapt forward with terrific suddenness and speed; and at each jolt, Mrs. Deacon groaned in suppressed alarm. She had begun to suspect that her escort had already been celebrating the coming New Year, and, indeed, it was not unlikely; for the poor old bachelor was as noted for his convivial temperament as for his gallantry.
“Pray, Mr. Buchanan, would it not be as well to drive less rapidly?” suggested Mrs. Deacon, as casually as she could. But Mr. Buchanan would not hear of this; he felt that she hinted at a veiled doubt as to his ability for managing his fiery steeds.
“Have no fears, ma’am. You may place entire confidence in me, ma’am. I may seem reckless—and there’s dash of the old Harry in my nature, I won’t deny—but there ain’t a man in Frederickstown, I may say in the whole _county_, ma’am, as understands this team of horses like me. Why I was drivin’ this here Jerry and Tom afore you was born, Miss—er—ma’am;—it’s the living truth. Why, they are like my own children—they love me, and I l-o-ove them, like they was my own brothers!” And the tenderness of his emotion so wrought upon Mr. Buchanan’s spirit, that large tears stood in his childish blue eyes. It cannot be said that even these assurances calmed Mrs. Deacon’s fears; but if to her that five mile drive was a thing of sudden alarms and constant terrors, to Lily it was an unmixed delight. It was not often that Lily was able to take part in the various merry-makings of the town; there always seemed to be so many other things for her to do, and she was far oftener spending her hours in company with her mother’s serious-minded friends than with the lively boys and girls of her own age. She attended innumerable meetings of the Ladies’ Civic Uplift Society, she made innumerable red flannel petticoats with feather-stitched hems for little heathen girls, she prepared innumerable sandwiches for various parish entertainments, she made innumerable calls on fretful invalids; but she did not very often find a chance to have simply a good time.
