ants who stared from doorways in a couple of very
picturesque villages through which we drove, was ominous. Evidently they
had scarcely ever seen a motor-car, for they glared at us as if we were
antediluvian animals. Running out of the second village, Asso, we found
ourselves climbing a road which was not only as steep as the side of a
house, but so narrow that, if we had met anything, it couldn't possibly
have passed us. The way was wild and eerie; we could not tell what might
come beyond each corner, and we could see nothing but the roughly
climbing road, with its embankments, except as we looked back and down
into vast spaces of strange beauty, like fleeting scenes in dreams.

"I'm sure we must have come wrong. This can't be the way that the
Prince meant," I said. "It's more like a track for goats than
automobiles."

"We have come right according to directions," answered Mr. Barrymore,
"but I must say, I rather wonder at the directions. According to
Dalmar-Kalm's account, the road was fairly good. I can hardly think he
risked this route for his own car."

"Is there another he could have taken?" inquired Sir Ralph.

"Yes. He could have driven along the lake as far as Varenna, and then
sent his car across to Bellagio on one of the steamers."

"My prophetic soul, which I inherit from a long line of Scotch
ancestors, tells me that's what he did," said Sir Ralph. Then he added
in a lower voice, "It would be like him." But I heard, and wondered if,
after all, he were a little jealous of the Prince?

"Whether he did or not, I'm glad _we_ didn't," remarked Beechy. "This
looks like being an adventure; and none of us are old enough to have
outgrown our love of adventure, are we, Mamma?"

Of course, I had to say "no," though I'd been on the point of asking
whether it wouldn't be possible for us to go back. We had just come into
a ragged hamlet, and there was literally no more than room for us to
scrape through between the poor stone houses which leaned over us on
either side the steep, roughly cobbled road. Six inches less, and we
would have been in danger of slicing off our mud-guards, upon which lay
a lot of our luggage as if on shelves. My heart was in my mouth, and I
said so to Beechy; but she only laughed, and replied pertly--even for
her--that she hoped it was a good fit, or should she pat me on the back?

Instead of smoothing out to a level again, as I hoped against hope that
it would, the road grew steeper with