argo of dishes. You see the car's very solidly built
and heavy--that, said Mr. Cecil-Lanstown, is one of its merits. It is of
oak, an inch thick, and you can't break it. Another thing in its favour
is that it has solid tyres, and not those horrid pneumatics, which are
always bursting and puncturing, and give no end of trouble. "With solid
tyres you are always safe," said Mr. Cecil-Lanstown. I can't help
thinking, though, that on roads like these of Dieppe it would be
soothing to have "pneus," as they call them. Jingle, jingle! scrunch,
scrunch! goes the machinery inside, and all the loose parts of the car.
It did get on my nerves.

But soon we were out of the town and on one of the smoothest roads you
ever saw. Rattray said it was a "route nationale," and that they are the
best roads in the world. The car bounded along as if it were on a
billiard-table. Even Aunt Mary said, "Now, if it were always like
_this_----" My spirits went up, up. I proudly smiled and bowed to the
peasants in their orchards by the roadsides. I was even inclined to pat
Rattray on the shoulder of his black leather coat. This, _this_ was
life! The sun shone, the fresh air sang in our ears, the car ran as if
it had the strength of a giant. I felt as independent as a gipsy in his
caravan, only we were travelling at many times his speed. The country
seemed to unfold just like a panorama. At each turn I looked for an
adventure.

We skimmed through a delicious green country given up to enormous
orchards which, Aunt Mary read out of a guide-book, yield the famous
_cidre de Normandie_. I thought of the lovely pink dress this land would
wear by-and-by, and then suddenly we came out from a small road on to a
broad, winding one, and there was a wide view over waving country, with
a white town like a butterfly that had fluttered into a bird's nest.
Rattray let the car go down this long road towards the valley at
something like thirty miles an hour, and Aunt Mary's hand had nervously
grasped the rail when there came a kind of sigh inside the car, and it
paused to rest.

Rattray jumped off and made puzzled inspection. "Can't see anything
wrong, miss; must take off the luggage and look inside." It is a
peculiarity that every working part is hidden modestly under the body of
the car. This protects them from wet and dust, Mr. Cecil-Lanstown told
me; but it seems a little inconvenient to have to haul off _all_ the
luggage every time you want to examine the machin