be
viperish. Mamma's not at all nice when she's either."

"I think you're all wonderfully good-natured," remarked Mr. Barrymore
hastily. "You are the right sort of people for a motoring trip, and no
other sort ought to undertake one. Only men and women of fairly
venturesome dispositions, who revel in the unexpected, and love
adventure, who can find fun in hardships, and keep happy in the midst of
disappointments, should set out on such an expedition as this."

"In fact, _young_ people like ourselves," added Mamma, beaming again.

"Yes, young in heart, if not in body. I hope to be still motoring when
I'm eighty; but I shall feel a boy."

We left him hammering, and looking radiantly happy, which was more than
we were as we wandered back to the arcaded town and our hotel; but we
felt obliged to live up to the reputation Mr. Barrymore had just given
us.

Somehow, the Ten of Clubs and his assistant cards (there were no
chambermaids) had contrived to make a fire that didn't smoke, and the
bed linen looked clean, though coarse. Dinner--which we ate with our
feet on boards under the table, to keep them off the cold stone
floor--was astonishingly good, and we quite enjoyed grating cheese into
our soup on a funny little grater with which each one of us was
supplied. We had a delicious red wine with a little sparkle in it,
called Nebiolo, which Sir Ralph ordered because he thought we would like
it; and when we had finished dining, Mamma felt so much encouraged that
she spoke quite cheerfully of the coming night.

We went to our room early, as we were to start at eight next day, and
try to get on to Pavia and Milan. We had said nothing to the Prince
about the water-wheel, as it was not our affair to get Joseph into
trouble with his master; and I'm afraid that all of us except Mamma
derived a sinful amusement from the thought of His Highness's surprise
in the morning, at Alessandria or elsewhere. Even Maida's eyes twinkled
naughtily as he bade us "_au revoir_, till our start," kissing Mamma's
hand, and saying nothing of his night plans.

"I wonder, if we _could_ go to bed, after all?" soliloquized Mamma,
looking wistfully at the hard pillows and the red-cased down coverlets,
when we were in our room. "What was that Mr. Terrymore said about
warming-pans? I should have thought they were obsolete, except to hang
up on parlour walls."

"I should think nothing that was in use six hundred years ago, was
obsolete in an Italian t