rried about.

She always supplicated the mythical Milt in moments of tight driving.
Driving, just the actual getting on, was her purpose in life, and the
routine of driving was her order of the day: Morning freshness, rolling
up as many miles as possible before lunch, that she might loaf
afterward. The invariable two P.M. discovery that her eyes ached, and
the donning of huge amber glasses, which gave to her lithe smartness a
counterfeit scholarliness. Toward night, the quarter-hour of level
sun-glare which prevented her seeing the road. Dusk, and the discovery
of how much light there was after all, once she remembered to take off
her glasses. The worst quarter-hour when, though the roads were an
amethyst rich to the artist, they were also a murkiness exasperating to
the driver, yet still too light to be thrown into relief by the lamps.
The mystic moment when night clicked tight, and the lamps made a fan of
gold, and Claire and her father settled down to plodding content--and no
longer had to take the trouble of admiring the scenery!

The morning out of Billings, she wondered why a low cloud so
persistently held its shape, and realized that it was a far-off
mountain, her first sight of the Rockies. Then she cried out, and wished
for Milt to share her exultation. Rather earnestly she said to Mr.
Boltwood:

"The mountains must be so wonderful to Mr. Daggett, after spending his
life in a cornfield. Poor Milt! I hope----"

"I don't think you need to worry about that young man. I fancy he's
quite able to run about by himself, as jolly as a sand-dog. And---- Of
course I'm extremely grateful to him for his daily rescue of us from the
jaws of death, but he was right; if he had stayed with us, it would have
been inconvenient to keep considering him. He isn't accustomed to the
comedy of manners----"

"He ought to be. He'd enjoy it so. He's the real American. He has
imagination and adaptability. It's a shame: all the _petits fours_ and
Bach recitals wasted on Jeff Saxton, when a Milt Dag----"

"Yes, yes, quite so!"

"No, honest! The dear honey-lamb, so ingenious, and really, rather
good-looking. But so lonely and gregarious--like a little woolly dog
that begs you to come and play; and I slapped him when he patted his
paws and gamboled---- It was horrible. I'll never forgive myself. Making
him drive on ahead in that nasty, patronizing way---- I feel as if we'd
spoiled his holiday. I wonder if he had intended to make the Yel