Poor Daisy Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and money, looked blue and cold in her little black suit, and her pale blue liberty scarf was horribly inadequate and unbecoming.  Daisy was really painful to see as she gazed out apprehensively at the dragging robe, and the glistening slant over which they were moving.  Alice regarded her not so much with pity as with a calm, sheltering sense of superiority and strength.  She pulled the inner robe of the coupe up and tucked it firmly around Daisy’s thin knees.

“You look half frozen,” said Alice.

“I don’t mind being frozen, but I do mind being scared,” replied Daisy sharply.  She removed the robe with a twitch.

“If that old horse stumbles and goes down and kicks, I want to be able to get out without being all tangled up in a robe and dragged,” said she.

“While the horse is kicking and down I don’t see how he can drag you very far,” said Alice with a slight laugh.  Then the horse stumbled.  Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little, nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove.

“Do please hold your reins tighter,” she called.  Again the misty blue eyes rolled about, the head nodded, the rotary jaws were seen, the robe dragged, the reins lay loosely.

“That wasn’t a stumble worth mentioning,” said Alice Mendon.

“I wish he would stop chewing and drive,” said poor Daisy Shaw vehemently.  “I wish we had a liveryman as good as that Dougherty in Axminister.  I was making calls there the other day, and it was as slippery as it is now, and he held the reins up tight every minute.  I felt safe with him.”

“I don’t think anything will happen.”

“It does seem to me if he doesn’t stop chewing, and drive, I shall fly!” said Daisy.

Alice regarded her with a little wonder.  Such anxiety concerning personal safety rather puzzled her.  “My horses ran away the other day, and Dick went down flat and barked his knees; that’s why I have Fitzgerald to-day,” said she.  “I was not hurt.  Nobody was hurt except the horse.  I was very sorry about the horse.”

“I wish I had an automobile,” said Daisy.  “You never know what a horse will do next.”

Alice laughed again slightly.  “There is a little doubt sometimes as to what an automobile will do next,” she remarked.

“Well, it is your own brain that controls it, if you can run it yourself, as you do.”

“I am not so sure.  Sometimes I wonder if the automobile hasn’t an uncanny sort of brain itself.  Sometimes I wonder how far men can go with the invention of machinery without putting more of themselves into it than they bargain for,” said Alice.  Her smooth face did not contract in the least, but was brooding with speculation and thought.

Then the horse stumbled again, and Daisy screamed, and again tapped the window.

“He won’t go way down,” said Alice.  “I think he is too stiff.  Don’t worry.”