“Wait till I git my breath,” she said; and then:  “They got us into a little room, and, all of a sudden, we started skallyhootin’ fer th’ roof—­room an’ all!”

Frank fell back, relieved, and trying not to show amusement.

“That was the elevator,” he explained.  “A machine to carry you upstairs and save you the work of climbing.”

“Dellaw!” exclaimed the girl, not yet entirely calm.  “As if I couldn’t walk!  Thought we was blowed up by another dynamighty bomb!”

Miss Alathea entered hurriedly, looking about the room, in evident distress.  At sight of Madge she gave a great sigh of relief.  “My dear, I’m so sorry you were frightened!”

The girl laughed nervously, pulling herself together.  “I understand, now, Miss ’Lethe, and I’m as cool as a cucumber.”

There was a group of darkies at the door, and, suddenly, they all began to grin.  Miss ’Lethe knew the sign.

“The Colonel’s coming,” she said positively.  “Their faces show it.  Look at them?”

Her guess proved a true prophecy.  The Colonel, plainly busy with absorbing thoughts, was striding along the uneven old brick sidewalk, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, when the crowd of darkies, sure of his good-nature, beneficiaries from past favors, many times, surrounded him, beseeching him for tips upon the coming races.  Very different were these city darkies from the respectful negroes of the Kentucky plantations of the time.  They swarmed about him in an insistent horde.

“Who gwine win dat race, Marse Cunnel?  Who gwine win dat race?” they chorussed.

He stopped and beamed at them good-naturedly.

“Who’s going to win?” said he.  “Queen Bess, of course.”

He joined the group, inside, with a bundle in one hand and an open telegram in the other.  “Good morning, ladies.  Miss ’Lethe, you’re looking fresh and blooming as you used to twenty years ago.”  He tried to catch himself, but failed.  “As fresh and blooming,” he corrected, “as usual, Miss ’Lethe.”  His bow was very courtly and her own no less so.

“Frank, my boy,” said he, turning to the youthful owner of Queen Bess, “I’ve got their answer, and it’s all right.”

Frank had been acutely worried.  There had been some question of the sale of the mare to the Dyer Brothers before the fire; now that this disaster had occurred and stories had been started, as, of course, he knew they must have been, about injuries to her, there might be, he had feared, good reason to expect the celebrated horsemen to withdraw their proposition.  The Colonel’s news, therefore, was very welcome.

“They take the mare?” he asked, all eagerness.”

“N-o,” began the Colonel, “but—­”

Frank’s face fell, instantly, and his shoulders drooped despairingly.  “Then it’s all wrong.”

“Not yet,” said the Colonel, “score again.”  He raised the telegram and read from it:  “’Can’t take mare without positive proof that she’s all right.  Let her run in the Ashland Oaks, to-day.  If she wins, we take her.’” The Colonel looked up beamingly.  “Do you hear?  They take her!”