masculine voice, confidently.

"How long?" asked the driver.

There was a hurried consultation within. The words "Might send us
packing!" "May take all night to get him to listen to reason,"
"Bother! whole thing over in ten minutes," came from the window.
The driver meanwhile had settled himself back in his seat, and
whistled in patient contempt of a fashionable fare that didn't know
its own mind nor destination. Finally, the masculine head was
thrust out, and, with a certain potential air of judicially ending
a difficulty, said:--

"You're to follow us slowly, and put up your horses in the stable
or barn until we want you."

An ironical laugh burst from the driver. "Oh, yes--in the stable
or barn--in course. But, my eyes sorter failin' me, mebbee, now,
some ev you younger folks will kindly pint out the stable or barn
of the Kernel's. Woa!--will ye?--woa! Give me a chance to pick
out that there barn or stable to put ye in!" This in arch
confidence to the horses, who had not moved.

Here the previous speaker, rotund, dignified, and elderly, alighted
indignantly, closely followed by the rest of the party, two ladies
and a gentleman. One of the ladies was past the age, but not the
fashion, of youth, and her Parisian dress clung over her wasted
figure and well-bred bones artistically if not gracefully; the
younger lady, evidently her daughter, was crisp and pretty, and
carried off the aquiline nose and aristocratic emaciation of her