wo horse
fly because it was very windy and cold. It always is, we are told, and
the motors for hire were all open. So we started to go to Fairmount, the
big hotel right up on the hill. At first it was a sort of gradual slope
past such sad desolation of levelled houses, with hardly the foundations
left. The results of the earthquake and the fire are so incredible that
you would think I was recounting travellers' tales if I described them,
so I won't. Presently the coachman turned his two strong fat horses to
the right, up one of the perpendicular roads, to get to our destination,
but they would have none of it! They backed and jibbed and got as cross
as possible, and he was obliged to continue along the slope, explaining
to us that there was another turning further on which they might be
persuaded to face. But when we got there it was just the same, no
whipping or coaxing could get them to sample it. They backed so
violently that we nearly went over into the cellars of a ruin at the
corner, and the man asked us to get out, as he said it was no use, none
of his horses would face these streets. And to go on to a gradual hill
was miles further along, and he advised us to walk, as the hotel was
only about six hundred yards away!! So in the growing night Octavia and
I, clutching our jewel cases, were left to our own devices. We really
felt deserted, as now that nearly everything in this neighbourhood is in
ruins there are no people about much, and it felt like being alone in a
graveyard, or Pompeii after dark. We almost expected bandits and
wolves or jackals. We started, holding on our hats and feeling very
ill-tempered, but we had not got a hundred yards on our climb, when a
motor tore down upon us, and Gaston and the Senator jumped out; they had
been getting quite anxious at our non-arrival and come to look for us.
Tom, of course, being an English husband, was sure nothing had happened;
and when we got there we found him having a cocktail and smoking a cigar
calmly in the hotel.

As we have come this way we have picked up Lola sooner. I must call her
that, Mamma, although I dislike using peoples' Christian names, but
Mrs. Vinerhorn is so long, and everyone calls her Lola, and the Senator
wished it; he wants us to be friends. He and I have been even more
intimate since he told me his story. I am deeply attached to him; he is
a sort of father and yet not--much nicer, really; and the best friend
I have in the world, except you