I should
doubtless suffer in the process," replied Sir Ralph.

"I'll comfort you whenever I have time," I assured him.

"Do," he entreated. "It will be a real charity. And in the meantime, I
shan't be idle. I shall be working for you."

"Thank you ever so much," said I. "I should be glad if you'd report
progress from time to time."

"I will," said he. "We'll keep each other up, won't we?"

"Be-echy!" shrieked Mamma. "I've been screaming to you for the last
_twenty_ minutes. Come here at once and tell me what you're doing. It's
sure to be something naughty."

So we both came. But the only part that we mentioned was the worm. X

XII

A CHAPTER OF HORRORS

It is wonderful how well it passes time to have a secret understanding
with anybody; that is, if you're a girl, and the other person a man. Mr.
Barrymore and Maida seemed hardly to have gone before they were back
again; which pleased me very much. In attendance was a man with a
mule--a grinning man; a ragged and reluctant mule; which was still more
reluctant when it found out what it was expected to do. However, after a
fine display of diplomacy on our Chauffeulier's part, and force on that
of the mule's owner, the animal was finally hitched to the automobile
with strong rope.

Mr. Barrymore had to sit in the driver's seat to steer, while the man
led the mule, but we others decided to walk. Mamma's heels are not quite
as high as her pride (when she's feeling pretty well), so she preferred
to march on the road rather than endure the ignominy of being dragged
into even the smallest of villages behind the meanest of beasts.

A train for Cuneo was due at Limone, it seemed, in an hour, and we could
walk there in about half that time, Mr. Barrymore thought. He had made
arrangements with the _capo di stazione_, as he called him, to have a
truck in readiness. The automobile would be put on it, and the truck
would be hitched to the train.

Maida and I were delighted with everything; and when Mamma grumbled a
little, and said this sort of thing wasn't what she'd expected, we
argued so powerfully that it was much more fun getting what you did not
expect, than what you did, that we brought her round to our point of
view, and set her laughing with the rest of us.

"After all, what does it matter, as long as we're all young together?"
said she, at last; and then I knew that the poor dear was happy.

Sir Ralph considered Limone an ordinary Italian village, but