mechanic."

I suppose young Nick must be the Dragon's pet name for the bronze image.
What fun that he should be a chauffeur! Fancy an Indian Idol squatted on
the front seat of an up-to-date automobile. But when you come to think
of it, there have been other gods in cars. I only hope, if I'm to be
behind him, this one won't behave like Juggernaut. He wears almost too
many clothes, for he is the type that would look over-dressed in a
bangle.

"We might have an eight or ten weeks' run about England," the Dragon
went on, "while things are being made straight at Graylees. It would be
good to see something of the blessed old island again before settling
down."

"One would think you were quite pleased at the fire, Lionel," remarked
his sister, who evidently believes it wrong to look on the bright side
of things, and right to expect the worst--like an undertaker calling for
a client before he's dead.

"What is, is," returned he. "We may as well make the best of it. You
wouldn't mind a motor tour, would you, Emily?"

"I would go if it were my duty, and you desired it," she said, looking
as if she ought to be on stained glass, with half a halo, "only I am
hardly young enough to consider motoring as a pleasure."

"There aren't many years between us," replied her brother, too polite to
say whether he were in front or behind, "but I confess I do regard it as
a pleasure."

"A man is different," she admitted.

Thank goodness, he is!

Then they talked more about the fire, which, it seems, happened through
something being wrong with a flue, in a room where Mrs. N. had told a
servant to build a fire on account of dampness. It must be a wonderful
old place from what they both let drop. (I told you in another letter
how Sir Lionel had inherited it, about the same time as his title, or a
little later. The estate, though, comes from the mother's side, and her
people were from Warwickshire.) His cool British way of saying and
taking things is a good deal on the surface, I think. He would have
hated us to see it, but I'm sure he worked himself up to quite a pitch
of joyful excitement over the idea of the motor trip, as it developed in
his mind. And it is splendid, isn't it, darling?

You know how sorry you were we hadn't been more economical, and made our
money last long enough to travel in England, instead of having to stop
short after a splash in London. Now I'm going to see bits in spite of
all, until I'm "called away," and I'l