ation about it, as Dicky
remarked, of the animals when Noah introduced them to the Ark. I asked
Dicky to describe the diligence for the purpose of this volume, thinking
that it might, here and there, have a reader who had never seen one, and
he said that, as soon as he had made up his mind whether it was most
like a triumphal chariot in a circus procession or a boudoir car in an
ambulance, he would; but then his eyes wandered to Isabel, who was
pinker than ever in the mountain air, and his reasoning faculties left
him. A small German with a very red nose, most incoherent in his
apparel--he might have been a Baron or again a hair-dresser--already
occupied one of the seats in the _interieur_, so after our elders had
been safely deposited beside him the _banquette_ and the _coupe_ were
left, as Mrs. Portheris said, to the adventurous young people. Dicky and
I had conspired, for the sustained effect on Mrs. Portheris, to sit in
the _banquette_, while Isabel was to suffer Mr. Mafferton in the
_coupe_--an arrangement which her mother viewed with entire complacency.
"After all," said Mrs. Portheris to momma, "we're not in Hyde Park--and
young people will be young people." We had not counted, however, with
the Senator, who suddenly realised, as Dicky was handing me up, that it
was his business, in the capacity of Doge, to interfere. It is to his
credit that he found it embarrassing, on account of his natural, almost
paternal, dislike to make things unpleasant for Dicky. He assumed a
sternly impenetrable expression, thought about it for a moment, and then
approached Mr. Mafferton.

"I'd be obliged to you," he said, "if you could arrange, without putting
yourself out any, to change places with young Dod, there, as far as St.
Moritz. I have my reasons--but not necessarily for publication. See?"

Mr. Mafferton's eye glistened with appreciation of the confidence
reposed in him. "I shall be most happy," he said, "if Dod doesn't mind."
But Dicky, with indecent haste, was already in the _coupe_. "Don't
mention it, Mafferton," he said out of the window. "I'm delighted--at
least--whatever the Senator says has got to be done, of course," and he
made an attempt to look hurt that would not have imposed upon anybody
but a self-constituted Doge with a guilty conscience. I took my
bereavement in stony calm, with possibly just a suggestion about my
eyebrows and under-lip that some day, on the far free shores of Lake
Michigan, a downtrodden dau