creaking of the injured wheel gave token that the pace must be reduced
to a walk.

The curtain before the window was held back, and a gentleman from within
addressed the guard.

"Will the wheel hold out, think you?" he said.

"It is impossible to assure your reverence that it will, and the night
will be dark."

The gentleman drew in his head with a little "Tut-tut" of consternation.

There were four occupants of the coach--two ladies and two gentlemen. Of
the ladies one was young, perhaps nineteen, and one close upon forty.
The younger was the parson's daughter Elizabeth, otherwise Betty Ives.
Her father, Mr. Ives, was bringing her home from Newbury, where she had
spent the last six months with her aunt, Mrs. Primrose, seeing something
of the gay world in the county town.

The father and daughter, who sat opposite to each other, bore a strong
resemblance to each other. In the girl's face the dark brows were more
arched, the large blue eyes more tender, the firm mouth more sweet, and
all tinted with the lilies and roses of a fresh country life, so
beautifully blended on the peach-like cheeks that, even without her rare
perfection of feature, the colouring alone would have made Betty
beautiful.

Parson Ives had been very handsome in his youth, and though worn by
years (he was forty years older than his child), and by the grief of