ringy back seat of our
car with surprise as I recognized them. Down went my head mechanically
in as polite a bow as if I hadn't been turned out of her house by Mrs.
West, though, when I realized what I was doing, I was afraid she might
pretend not to know me. It must make one feel such a worm to be ignored
when one has just grinned and ducked! But I needn't have feared. Mr.
Norman took off his cap as impressively as if I were really the princess
of the knight's fairy dream; and Mrs. West bowed, with a sweet, sad look
first at Mr. Somerled, then finishing up with me--just the reproachful,
yet resigned martyr-look a queen ought to give a crowd of rebellious
subjects on her way to the scaffold where their cruelty had sent her.

Of course, if I had to show this to Mr. Norman, and get him to criticise
my writing as he offered to do, I couldn't put in such things; so
perhaps it's as well I shall have to worry on alone.

Mr. Somerled, who was driving our car (with Vedder by his side, tooting
a musical horn), took off his cap as beautifully as Mr. Norman did,
without upsetting the steering, though there seemed to be a hundred
things and creatures of all descriptions in front of the motor's big
bright nose at that particular moment. I'd never realized until then
what a crowded, busy place Carlisle is; because it seems that you have a
different set of emotions and impressions especially for use in
motor-cars, and you _have_ to use them there, whether you like or not. I
suppose they lay quiescent in people for thousands of years, between the
epoch of exciting prehistoric beasts and automobiles; but now they come
into play often enough to make up for lost time. Not that I was afraid
in the car, even at first: only it did seem as if all the things that
moved on the face of the earth were aiming directly at us, to say
nothing of what we ourselves were doing to them. Luckily for me, I
trusted Mr. Somerled; and perhaps Mrs. James hadn't quite arrived at
that blissful state, or else she was naturally more timid, for she held
on so fast to the arm of the seat that she tore a glove, and had a
strained expression about her eyes and nostrils, though she beamed in a
painstaking way whenever she caught me looking at her.

"Who is that pretty blond lady and the handsome dark young man you just
bowed to?" she asked, when we had passed the gray car that was like a
bad copy of ours.

I told her that the man was Mr. Basil Norman and the lady wa