But oh, rapture!

Tess and Missy wrote the invitations themselves and decided to
deliver them in person, and Missy had no more prevision of all that
decision meant than Juliet had when her mother concluded she would
give the ball that Romeo butted in on.

Tess said they must do it with empressement, meaning she would
furnish an equipage for them to make their rounds in. Her father was
a doctor, and had turned the old Smith place into a sanitarium; and,
to use the Cherryvale word, he had several "rigs." However, when the
eventful day for delivery arrived, Tess discovered that her father
had disappeared with the buggy while her mother had "ordered out"
the surrey to take some ladies to a meeting of the Missionary
Society.

That left only an anomalous vehicle, built somewhat on the lines of
a victoria, in which Tim, "the coachman" (in Cherryvale argot known
as "the hired man"), was wont to take convalescent patients for an
airing. Tess realized the possible lack of dignity attendant upon
having to sit in the driver's elevated seat; but she had no choice,
and consoled herself by terming it "the box."

A more serious difficulty presented itself in the matter of suitable
steeds. One would have preferred a tandem of bright bays or, failing
these, spirited ponies chafing at the bit and impatiently tossing
their long, waving manes. But one could hardly call old Ben a steed
at all, and he proved the only animal available that afternoon. Ben
suffered from a disability of his right rear leg which caused him to