wife told her maid, and she passed it on to our Agnes, who
repeated it to me because we were sending her away. 'Kid, Kidder,
Kiddest.' I'm Kiddest, of course; that's easy enough; but it would save
the Prince lots of trouble and brain-fag if he only knew which was
'Rich,' which 'Richer,' and which 'Richest.'"

"Heavens!" I ejaculated. "If you have got together all this mass of
worldly wisdom at thirteen, what will you have accumulated at twenty?"

"It all depends on when Mamma allows me to be twenty," retorted the
little wretch. And what lengths this indecently frank conversation might
have reached between us I dare not think, had not an exclamation from
Terry cut it short.

"What do you say to that, Countess, and Miss Destrey? Have I won the
bet?" he was demanding, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket,
as he stood to survey his work.

If I had not infinite belief in Terry's true Irish ingenuity, I would
have considered the day and the bet both lost before the test had been
essayed. But he had justified my faith, and there on the almost
obliterated lines of the motor-car, behold a place for everything, and
everything in its place.

On one step the "Innovation" cabin-box reared itself on end like a
dwarfish obelisk; a fat hold-all adorned each mud-guard, where it lay
like an underdone suet pudding; the two huge dressing-bags had been
pushed under the corner seats of the tonneau, which fortunately was of
generous dimensions, while the third and smallest one (no doubt Miss
Destrey's) was so placed that it could be used as a footstool, or pushed
to the front out of the way. Umbrellas and parasols stood upright in a
hanging-basket especially designed for them; books and maps had
disappeared into a box, which was also a shelf on the back of the
driver's seat, and the tea-basket had been lashed on top of this.

The Prince's voice responded to Terry's question with ribald mirth
before it could be answered by the ladies.

"Ha, ha, ha!" cried he, shouting with laughter at the appearance of the
car; and even my lips twitched, though I would have vowed it was St.
Vitus's dance if anyone had accused me of a smile. "Ha, ha, the
automobile looks like nothing so much as a market-woman going home with
the family provisions for a month. But will she ever _get_ home?" Here
he became spasmodic, and as he had made a present of his picturesque
smile to all the lookers-on as well as to those whom it most concerned,
a grin ri