or twice, but fell on his foot each time, and perceived that he was

improving. Before he got to Bramley a specious byway snapped him up, ran

with him for half a mile or more, and dropped him as a terrier drops

a walkingstick, upon the Portsmouth again, a couple of miles from

Godalming. He entered Godalming on his feet, for the road through that

delightful town is beyond dispute the vilest in the world, a mere tumult

of road metal, a way of peaks and precipices, and, after a successful

experiment with cider at the Woolpack, he pushed on to Milford.

All this time he was acutely aware of the existence of the Young Lady

in Grey and her companion in brown, as a child in the dark is of Bogies.

Sometimes he could hear their pneumatics stealing upon him from behind,

and looking round saw a long stretch of vacant road. Once he saw far

ahead of him a glittering wheel, but it proved to be a workingman riding

to destruction on a very tall ordinary. And he felt a curious, vague

uneasiness about that Young Lady in Grey, for which he was altogether

unable to account. Now that he was awake he had forgotten that

accentuated Miss Beaumont that had been quite clear in his dream. But

the curious dream conviction, that the girl was not really the man's

sister, would not let itself be forgotten. Why, for instance, should a

man want to be alone with his sister on the top of a tower? At Milford

his bicycle made, so to speak, an ass of itself. A finger-post suddenly

jumped out at him, vainly indicating an abrupt turn to the right,

and Mr. Hoopdriver would have slowed up and read the inscription, but

no!--the bicycle would not let him. The road dropped a little into

Milford, and the thing shied, put down its head and bolted, and Mr.

The Wheels of Chance