echy's
paean of praise.

"And I think the way our things are arranged looks really _graceful_,"
said Miss Destrey. "Mr. Barrymore has won that bet easily, hasn't he,
Kitty and Beechy?"

"Yes," came faintly from the Countess and cordially from the child. And
I whistled "Hail, the Conquering Hero" _sotto voce_, as Dalmar-Kalm,
with a smile like a dose of asafoetida, counted out the amount of his
lost wager.

"Well," he said, squaring his shoulders to make the best of a bad
bargain, "you are three brave ladies to trust yourselves in a machine
without room, speed, or power to cross the Alps."

"You can go to the Cathedral at Monaco and pray for us to Saint Joseph,
who, Agnes told me, looks after travellers," said Beechy. "But I do
think a more modern saint ought to be invented for motorists."

"I shall do better than that. I shall be your protecting saint. I shall
go with you as a surgeon attends a company of soldiers," returned the
Prince, with his air of _grand seigneur_. "That is, I shall keep as near
you as a twenty-horse-power car with a light load can possibly keep to a
twelve, with three times the load it's fitted to carry."

"You're not very complimentary to Mamma," glibly remarked the
Irrepressible.

"I fancy, in spite of our load," said Terry with undaunted cheerfulness,
"we shall find room to stow away a coil of rope which may prove useful
for towing the Prince's car over some of those Alps he seems to think so
formidable, in case he decides to--er--follow us. If I'm not mistaken,
Prince, your motor is a Festa, made in Vienna, isn't it?"

"Certainly; the most successful in Austria. And mine is the handsomest
car the company has yet turned out. It was a special order."

"There's an old proverb which says, 'all isn't gold that glitters.' I
don't know whether it's apropos to anything that concerns us or not, but
we shall perhaps remember it sooner or later. Now, ladies, I think
everything is shipshape, and there's nothing to keep us any longer. How
would you like to sit? Some people think the best place beside the
driver, but--"

"Oh, _I_ wouldn't sit there for worlds with no horse in front to fall
out on in case anything happened!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder; "and I
couldn't let Beechy either. Maida is her own mistress, and can do as she
likes."

"If that girl is going to get in the habit of sitting by Terry day after
day," I hurriedly told myself, "I might far better have let him sell his
car and grow os