"Quite good flying," said John.

"We came by the valley route, too," put in Mrs. Robinson. "John was
good enough to consider my wretched air-pocket nerves rather than his
petrol."

"It's a couple of miles further," explained Robinson, "but my wife isn't
such a stout flier as her mother, though the old lady is over seventy.
My pilot was bringing her from Town one afternoon last week--took the
Dorking-Leith Hill air-way, you know, always bumpy over there--and I
suppose from all accounts he must have dropped her a hundred feet plumb,
side-slipped and got into a spinning dive and only pulled the old bus
out again when the furrows in a ploughed field below them had grown
easily countable."

"Yes, it makes me shivery to think of," ejaculated Mrs. Robinson; "but
mother really has extraordinary nerve. She wasn't in the least upset."

"No, not a little bit, by Jove!" added Robinson. "The old sport just
leaned forward in her seat and, when James had adjusted his head-piece,
she coolly reprimanded him for stunting without orders. Of course she
doesn't know anything about the theory of the thing, you see."

With the dessert came letters by the late air post.

"Oh, please excuse me," said Millie, as she took them from the maid,
"I see there's a reply from Auntie--the Edinburgh aunt, you know,"
she explained. "I wrote her this morning, imploring her to come over
to-morrow for the bazaar. She's so splendid at that sort of thing."