“Let me sit with January,” begged Beth.

Marian, also, expressed a like wish.  The two children, therefore, scrambled up in front beside the driver, while Mr. and Mrs. Davenport took the back seat.

January sat bolt upright.  His dignity fitted the occasion.  His driving, however, worried Beth.

She loved to go fast.  She knew no fear of horses.  She would have undertaken to drive the car of Phaeton, himself, had she been given the chance.  She had little patience to poke along, and that was exactly what Dolly did when January drove.

“Can’t she go faster?” she asked.

“She don’t ’pear to go very fast, does she?” said January mildly.  “Missy Beth, yo’ jes’ wait until her racing blood am up, and den she’ll go so fast, yo’ll wish she didn’t go so fast.”

Beth had her doubts of this, and even of Dolly’s racing blood.  Its truth, however, was to be proven by a later experience which will be told in due course.

“Has Dolly really racing blood?” asked Marian.  Although January was sitting so straight that it seemed impossible for him to sit any straighter, he stiffened up at least an inch.

“Racing blood?  Well, I jes’ ’lows she has.  Onct she wuz de fastest horse in dis State or any odder, I reckon.  She could clean beat ebbery horse far and near.  Many’s de race I’se ridden her in, an’ nebber onct lost.  My ole massa wuz powerful proud of us.  Now he’s gone, an’ Dolly an’ me’s gettin’ old.”

“How old are you, January?”

“Powerful ole, massa.  I reckon I’m nigh on a hundred.”

“That’s impossible,” interrupted Mrs. Davenport.  “When were you born?”

He scratched his head to help his memory.  “Well, de truf is, Miss Mary”—­he had heard Mr. Davenport call her Mary, and so from the start he addressed her in Southern style—­“I can’t say ’xactly, but I know I’se powerful old.  I wuz an ole man when de wah broke out.  I must have been ’bout—­well ’bout twenty then.”

“The war was only about forty years ago, January,” broke in Marian, “and that would make you sixty now.”

“I reckon, I’m ’bout dat.”  He had no idea of his age.  The longer the Davenports knew him, the more they realized the truth of this.  Sometimes he would make himself out a centenarian, and then, by his own reckoning, he was not out of his teens.

“Get up, Dolly,” he cried.  She paid no more attention to this mild command than she would have to the buzzing of a fly—­probably not so much.

“Papa, may I drive?” asked Marian in her quiet way.  Receiving consent, she took the reins.  Dolly soon noticed a difference in drivers.  Presently she went so fast, that she satisfied even Beth as to speed.

“Look at the river,” cried Beth.  They were driving under great, over-arching trees.  To the right of them, between the openings of the trees, the glorious St. Johns was to be seen gleaming under the brilliant tropical sun.