ine may even have her own reasons for thinking he wouldn't approve,
dragon or no dragon. Very likely she didn't tell me everything--she was
so anxious to have her own way.

But to go back to the journey here. Almost each mile we travelled gave
us some thought of Hardy, and acquainted me with the character of
Dorset, which is just what I expected from his books: giant trees; tall,
secretive hedges; high brick walls, mellow with age and curtained with
ivy; stone cottages, solid and prosperous and old, with queer little
bay-windows, diamond-paned; Purbeck granite bursting through the grass
of meadows, and making a grave background for brilliant flowers; heaths
that Hardy wrote about in the "Return of the Native"--heaths, heaths,
and rolling downs.

We took the way from Swanage to West Lulworth, and had an adventure on a
hill. Sir Lionel is very strict with his little Buddha about examining
everything that could possibly go wrong with the motor, and just before
we started, I heard him ask Young Nick if he had looked at the brakes
after our descent from Tilly Whim. "Oh, yes, sahib," said the brown
image. "Oh, no!" said the brakes themselves, on a big hill, as far from
the madding crowd as "Gabriel" and "Bathsheba" ever lived. We'd got
lost, and that was the way the car punished us. First of all, the motor
refused to work. That made Apollo feel faint, so that he began to run
backward down the hill instead of going up; and when Sir Lionel put on
the brakes, they wouldn't act.

It was the first time anything really bad had happened, and my heart
gave a jump, but somehow I wasn't frightened. With Sir Lionel driving,
it seemed as if no harm could come; and it didn't, for he steered to the
side of the road, and brought the car up short against a great hummock
of grass. All the same, we nearly tipped over, and Sir Lionel told us to
jump. I shouldn't have stirred if he hadn't spoken. I should have
awaited orders; but the others were moving before we stopped, and Mrs.
Senter fell down and bumped her knee. That made her hair come partly
undone, and, to my horror, a bunch of the dearest little curls, which I
always thought lived there, were loosened. There was a great wind
blowing, and in a second more the curls would have been on the horizon,
if I hadn't seized them just as they were about to take flight. If
they'd gone, they must have passed almost in front of Sir Lionel's nose,
on their way. Wouldn't that have been dreadful? I sho