ny harm in it's coming out now.

"Thankful to Mr. Barrymore for bringing us safely down the 'awful
mountain' when the break _had_ come at the top," I corrected Mamma, with
my chin in the air.

"Good Heavens, Beechy, what _do_ you mean?" she gasped, while our
Chauffeulier flashed me a quick look of surprise.

"Oh, only that the accident, whatever it was, happened soon after we
came out of the tunnel, and if Mr. Barrymore'd stopped when you wanted
him to, he couldn't have started again, for we were just running
downhill with our own weight; and I knew it all the time," I explained
airily.

"You're joking, Beechy, and I think it's horrid of you," said Mamma,
looking as if she were going to cry.

"Am I joking, Mr. Barrymore?" I asked, turning to him.

"I had no idea that you guessed, and I don't see now how you did; but
it's true that the accident happened up there," he admitted, and he
looked so grave that I began to feel guilty for telling.

"Then it was only by a merciful dispensation that we weren't hurled over
the precipice and dashed to pieces," exclaimed Mamma.

"That depends on one's definition of a merciful dispensation," said Mr.
Barrymore. "From one point of view every breath we draw is a merciful
dispensation, for we might easily choke to death at any instant. We were
never for a single moment in danger. If I hadn't been sure of that, of
course I would have stopped the car at any cost. As a matter of fact,
when we began the descent I found that the hand-brake wouldn't act, and
knew the chains had gone wrong. If I'd thought it was only that I could
have put on our spare chains, but I believed there was more and worse,
so I determined to get on as far towards civilization as I could before
stopping the car."

"You brought us down those ghastly hills without a brake!" Mamma cried
out, losing her temper. "And Sir Ralph called you careful! I can never
trust you again."

I could have slapped her and myself too.

"Aunt Kathryn!" exclaimed Maida. Then I could have slapped her as well
for interfering. It would serve her right if I married her off to the
Prince.

The Chauffeulier looked for a second as if he were going to say "Very
well, madam; do as you like about that." But Maida's little reproachful
exclamation apparently poured balm upon his troubled soul.

"Not without a brake," he answered, with great patience and politeness,
"but with one instead of two. If the foot-brake had burned, as possibly
it