spinning along a well-kept road, cheek by jowl with
the railway to Lyons.

From a high mountain on our left, the silver Cascade de Coux fell
vertically, like a white horse's tail; and I smiled to see, as we
flashed by, a little house which honoured a valiant foe against whom I
had fought, with the name of the Cafe de Boers.

Up and up mounted our road, cresting green billows of rolling mountain
land. We were running towards the boundary of Savoie, into Dauphine, a
country which I had never seen. The Boy and I had talked of entering
it together and visiting its Seven Marvels, the very possession of
which made it seem in our eyes alluringly mediaeval. Had he been my
companion still, we would have been travelling some hidden side-path,
where doubtless Joseph and Innocentina, chaperoned by _les animaux_,
were happily straying at this moment. I could almost hear the
donkey-girl's mechanically constant, warning cry, "Fanny-anny,
Fanny-anny! Souris-ouris!" like a low undertone of accompaniment to
the thrum of the motor.

The fancied sound smote me with homesickness, and to coax my mind from
the disappointment which still rankled, I asked Jack when he would let
me try my hand at driving.

"Not here," said he with a smile, which was instantly explained by an
abrupt plunge from the top of a long hill down into a cutting between
lichen-scaled rocks, tracing with our "pneus" as we went a series of
giddy zig-zags. We had hardly twisted one way when lo! the time had
come to twist in the opposite direction, and nowhere had we a radius
of more than twenty yards in which to perform our tricks.

"I couldn't have done that as well as you did it, I confess," said I,
with becoming modesty.

"It's easy enough when you've got the knack," replied the "Lightning
Conductor."

"So, no doubt, is reeling, writhing, and fainting in coils. Motoring
down these serpentine hills is like hurling yourself into space, and
trusting to Providence."

"So is all of life," said Jack. "A timid man might say the same of
getting out of bed in the morning."

"Even I can do the trick," cut in Molly, who was taking a temporary
interest in our affairs again. "At least, I can this year, now that
chickens are better than they used to be."

"They _are_ looking nice and fat this summer" I judicially remarked.

"I don't mean that," explained Molly. "But they are more sensible.
Last year, before Jack and I were married, chickens were so bad that I
used to dr