't feel somehow that it's _irrevocably_ too late. I can't! It was
good to hear her laugh again. "Do look," she said, "at the funny little
porches on the funny little houses! They put hammocks on ones that are
so narrow people have to fall off the porch when they want to get out!
Yet see how happy the women look! They must have husbands they love."

Caspian heard, and leaned forward to suppress her. "Patricia, I wouldn't
talk so much to the chauffeur if I were you, while he's driving. He
doesn't know the way, and he'd better give his attention to the
sign-posts."

Of course I could say nothing. But I reminded myself that snubs
generally come home to roost. I hoped he'd "get _his_," as you say, and
I hadn't long to wait before poetical justice fell. The man kept up a
running fire of information, which he had doubtless culled from a
guide-book to impress his fiancee, having no personal interest in
history except that it has led up to him. The landscape left him cold;
the seas of wild blue chicory and forget-me-not didn't suggest to him
the colour of a certain girl's eyes as it did to another chap who had no
right to make the comparison. He didn't care for the "Golden Wedding
House," or any of the other pretty old houses so beautifully fitted to
the pretty old ladies rocking on their "piazzas" under the shade of
giant trees. The facts with which he had primed himself, like pocketsful
of dry cracknels, were such as "Here" (at East Milton) "was built the
first railway in the country. It was horse drawn, and over it was
carried" (I think he used the word "transported," which proved the
guide-book) "stone from the quarries of Quincy to construct the Bunker
Hill Monument." "Here" (at Quincy) "in the middle of the city stands the
Stone Temple where are buried the two Presidents, John Adams and John
Quincy Adams."

It was then that the snub flew home, with a strong impetus from the
exasperated Pat.

"I don't want to know about Bunker Hill Monument being built," she
turned round to snap. "I want to think it built itself. And I don't want
to know where Presidents are buried. I only want to know where they had
their golden weddings, and where they lived happily. Besides, it gives
me a crick in my neck to be always listening to some one behind. If I
can't talk to Mr. Stor-r-rm for fear of upsetting him, I won't talk to
anybody, please!"

There was one in the eye for Caspian; and it gave me my opportunity to
murmur with mere perf