because there aren't enough dukes. I've
always thought the American nation the most favoured in the world.
Aren't all your girls brought up to expect to be duchesses, and your men
presidents?"

"_I_ wasn't," snapped Beechy. "If there was a duke anywhere around,
Mamma would take him, if she had to snatch him out of my mouth. What are
English girls brought up to expect?"

"Hope for, not expect," I corrected her. "Any leavings there are in the
way of marquesses or earls; or if none, a mere bishop or a C. B."

"What's a C. B.?" asked Mrs. Kidder anxiously.

"A Companion of the Bath."

"My goodness! Whose bath?"

"The Bath of Royalty. We say it with a capital B."

"My! How awkward for your King. And what was done about it when you had
only a Queen on the throne?"

"You must inquire of the chamberlains," I replied. "But about that trip
of ours. The--er--my car is in a garage not far away, and it can be
ready when--"

"Oh, I hope it's a _red_ car, with your coat of arms on it. I do so
admire red for an automobile. We could all fix ourselves up in red
cloaks and hats to match, and make ourselves look awfully swell--"

"Everybody'd call us 'The Crimson Ramblers,' or 'The Scarlet Runners,'
or something else horrid," tittered that precocious child Beechy.

"It isn't red, it's grey," Terry managed hastily to interpolate; which
settled one burning question, the first which had been settled or seemed
likely to be settled at our present rate of progress.

"If you are keen on starting--" I essayed again, hope triumphing over
experience.

"Yes, I'm just looking forward to that start," Mrs. Kidder caught me up.
"We _shall_ make a sensation. We're neighbours of yours, you know. We're
at the Cap Martin Hotel. Isn't it perfectly lovely there, with that big
garden, the woods and all? When we were coming to the Riviera, I told
the man at Cook's that we wanted to go to the grandest hotel there was,
where we could feel we were getting our money's worth; and he said all
the kings and princes, and queens and princesses went to the Cap Martin,
so--"

"We thought it might be good enough for us," capped Beechy.

"It's as full of royalties, as--as--"

"As a pack of cards," I suggested.

"And some of them have splendid automobiles. I've been envying them; and
only this morning I was saying to my little girl, what a lot of nice
things there are that women and children can't do, travelling
alone--automobiling for one. Then, when I