"Oh, don't mind, dear," said Alice Mendon. "It is his own lookout if
he loses the robe."

"It isn't that," responded Daisy querulously. "It isn't that. I don't
care, since he is so careless, if he does lose it, but I must say
that I don't think it is safe. Suppose it got caught in the wheel,
and I know this horse stumbles."

"Don't worry, dear," said Alice Mendon. "Fitzgerald's robe always
drags, and nothing ever happens."

Alice Mendon was a young woman, not a young girl (she had left young
girlhood behind several years since) and she was distinctly beautiful
after a fashion that is not easily affected by the passing years. She
had had rather an eventful life, but not an event, pleasant or
otherwise, had left its mark upon the smooth oval of her face. There
was not a side nor retrospective glance to disturb the serenity of
her large blue eyes. Although her eyes were blue, her hair was almost
chestnut black, except in certain lights, when it gave out gleams as
of dark gold. Her features were full, her figure large, but not too
large. She wore a dark red tailored gown; and sumptuous sable furs
shaded with dusky softness and shot, in the sun, with prismatic
gleams, set off her handsome, not exactly smiling, but serenely
beaming face. Two great black ostrich plumes and one red one curled
down toward the soft spikes of the fur. Between, the two great blue
eyes, the soft oval of the cheeks, and the pleasant red fullness of
the lips appeared.

Poor Daisy Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and