ll do my best!" agreed Carmel.

As it is impossible to follow the adventures of everybody, we will
concern ourselves particularly with the experiences of our heroine, who
was to take her first motor tour among English scenery. The party in the
comfortable Rover car consisted of Major and Mrs. Rogers, their daughter
Sheila, their guest Carmel, and a chauffeur. Major Rogers was still
suffering from the effects of wounds, and was more or less of a
semi-invalid, a condition which made him fussy at times, and too
independent at others, for directly he felt a trifle better he would
immediately begin to break all the rules that the doctors had laid down
for his treatment. He was an amusing, humorous sort of man, who would
jest between spasms of pain, and generally found something to laugh at
in the various episodes of their journey. There is a laughter, though,
that is more the expression of supreme courage than of genuine mirth,
and the drawn lines round the Major's mouth told of sleepless nights and
days of little ease, and of trouble that hurts worse even than physical
pain; for one son lay on a Belgian battle-field, another on the heights
near Salonika, with no cross to mark the grave, and a third deep under
the surging waters of the Atlantic.

Mrs. Rogers was Mr. Greville's sister, and for that reason, though she
was no real relation, Carmel called her Aunt Hilda. She had been a belle
in her youth, and she was still pretty with the pathetic beauty that
often shines in the faces of those who have suffered great loss. Her
once flaxen hair was almost entirely gray, but she had kept her delicate
complexion, and there was a gentle sweetness about her that was very
attractive.

Her daughter was an exact replica of what she herself must have been at
nineteen, though Sheila was going through an uncomfortable phase, and
affected to despise the country, to be nervous of motoring, and to long
to be back in town again. She was quite kind to Carmel, but treated her
with the distantly indulgent attitude of the lately-grown-up for the
mere schoolgirl. It was evident that she regarded the whole tour as more
or less of a nuisance, and just a means of killing time until she could
start off for Scotland to join a certain house-party to which she had
been invited, and where she would meet several of her most particular
friends.

"I'm sorry we couldn't ask one of your cousins to come with you, dear,"
said Mrs. Rogers to Carmel, "but there