ess than twenty
_pounds_ a week; but Brown explained that this was because his master
liked him to drive it, and that really it wasn't so cheap as I thought.
I suppose it's all right. Funny, though, that I should have the car of
that Mr. John Winston, whose mother--Lady Brighthelmston--I met in
Paris, and promised to meet again in Cannes. Fancy Aunt Mary and me
lolling luxuriously (I love that word "lolling") in a snow-white car
with scarlet cushions, all the brass-work gleaming like a fireman's
helmet--the rakiest, smartest car imaginable! There are two seats in
front and a roomy _tonneau_ behind. The steering and other arrangements
are quite different from those in the poor dead Dragon--rest its wicked
soul! There's a steering-wheel, and below it two ducky little handles
that do everything. One's the "advance sparking lever," the other the
"mixture lever." There are no horrid belts to break themselves--and your
heart at the same time, but instead a "change speed gear" and a
"clutch." I had my first lesson in driving, sitting by Brown on the way
to Amboise. He teaches one awfully well, and I was perfectly happy
learning, especially when I found that the faster we went the easier the
dear thing is to steer. I was so interested that I didn't know a bit
what the road was like, except that it was good and white and mostly
level, so that when Brown suddenly said "There is the Chateau of
Amboise," I was quite startled.

Luckily he was driving again by that time, or I should probably have
shot us into the river instead of turning to the bridge; for we were on
the other side of the Loire looking across to the castle.

You poor, dear, stay-at-home Dad, to think of your never having seen any
of these lovely places that you've nobly sent me to browse among! You
_say_ you admire Wall Street more than French chateaux, and that when
you want a grand view you can go and look at Brooklyn Bridge or the
statue of Liberty by night; but you don't know what you're missing. And
if travelling would _really_ bore you, why do you like me to describe
things, so that I can "give you a picture though my eyes"?

I wonder if girls who have lived all their lives in old, old countries
can have the same sort of awed, surprised, almost dream-like feeling
that comes to me when I see these great feudal castles that are like
history in stone? Yes, in stone, and yet the stone seems _alive_ too as
if it were the _flesh_ of history; and as I think of all t