e back seat on this
automobile trip; but my name isn't Beechy Kidder if it's dull for any
length of time.

However, this reflection is only a parenthesis in the midst of
breakfast; for we all had breakfast together in the monastery garden and
were as "gay as grigs." (N.B.--Some kind of animal for which Sir Ralph
is responsible.)

The Prince was nice to the two "adventurers," because he didn't want
them to repent their promise to tow his car up to Tenda; Maida was nice
to everybody, because a monastery was next best to a convent; Mr.
Barrymore was nice to her dog; Sir Ralph and the Prince were both nice
to Mamma, and Breakfast (I spell it with a capital to make it more
important) was nice to the poor little girl who would have had nobody to
play with, if each one hadn't been a dancing doll of hers without
realizing it.

The monk wouldn't charge us a cent for our board, so we had
unconsciously been paying him a visit all the time, though paying
nothing else, and the Prince had actually found fault with the coffee!

However, Sir Ralph gave him a donation for the charities of the house,
which he accepted, so we could bid him good-bye without feeling like
tramps who had stolen a lodging in somebody's barn.

As our automobile had to drag the Prince's, and it appeared that Tenda
was less than three miles away, Maida and I decided to walk. Sir Ralph
walked with us, and the Prince looked as if he would like to, but after
our talk before breakfast, he naturally felt that his place was by the
side of Mamma. She comes down two inches in common-sense walking shoes,
so of course hills are not for her, now that she's trying to be as
beautiful as she feels; but the Prince persuaded her to sit in the
tonneau of his car, as it crawled up the steep white road behind Mr.
Barrymore and the Panhard, so slowly that he could pace beside her. Sir
Ralph talked to Maida, as we three trailed after the two motors, and I
began to wonder if I hadn't been a little too strenuous in making the
Prince entirely over to Mamma.

Not that I wanted him personally, but I
did want some one to want me, so presently I pretended to be tired, and
running after the toiling cars, asked Mr. Barrymore whether my weight
would make much difference if I sat by him.

"No more than a feather," said he, with such a delightful smile that I
wished myself back at seventeen again, so that he might not talk "down"
to me in that condescending, uncomfortable way that grown