ed them,
promising a pilgrimage of pleasure. But the charmingly dressed beings,
who looked like birds of paradise alighted by mistake in a pigsty, made
sport of the squalor which we had expected to evoke their rage.

"Dear me, I wish we'd brought some chewing gum," was Beechy's one
sarcasm at the expense of the meal, and Maida and the Countess laughed
merrily at everything, even the flies, which they thought did not know
their own power as well as American flies.

"We've some _lovely_ cakes and candy packed in that sweet tea-basket we
bought at an English shop in Paris," said Mrs. Kidder; "but I suppose
we'd better not get anything out to eat now, for fear of hurting the
waiters' feelings. What do you think, Sir Ralph?"

"Personally, I should like nothing better than to hurt them," I replied
severely, "but I'm thinking of myself. Cakes and candy on top of those
walking-sticks! 'T were more difficult to build on such a foundation
than to rear Venice on its piles and wattles.

"We'd better save what we have till later on," said Maida. "About four
o'clock, perhaps we shall be glad to stop somewhere, and I can make tea.
It will be fun having it in the automobile."

"There she goes now, revealing domestic virtues!" I thought ruefully.
"It will be too much for Teddy to find her an all-round out-of-doors and
indoors girl in one. He always said the combination didn't exist; that
you had to put up with one or the other in a nice girl, and be jolly
thankful for what you'd got."

But Terry did not seem to be meditating upon the pleasing trait just
brought to light by his travelling companion. He remarked calmly that by
tea-time we should doubtless have reached San Dalmazzo, a charming
little mountain village with an old monastery turned into an inn; and
then he audibly wondered what had become of the Prince.

"My! What a shame, I'd almost forgotten him!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder.
"He must have given us up in despair and gone on."

"Perhaps he's had a break-down," I suggested.

"What! with that wonderful car? He told me last night that nothing had
ever happened to it yet. He must be miles ahead of us by now."

"Then this is his astral body," said Terry. "Clever of him to 'project'
one for his car too. Never heard of its being done before."

Nor had I ever heard of an astral body who swore roundly at its
chauffeur, which this apparition now stopping in front of the restaurant
windows did. It called the unfortunate shape in