irresistible, and any man would have been enraptured that so exquisite
a creature should interest herself in his fate. "It doesn't much
matter to me where I go, so long as I can moon about in the mountains,
and eventually, before I'm old and grey, bring up on the Riviera."

"Well, then," said Molly, "since you are so accommodating, I not only
advise but _order_ you to go over the Great St. Bernard Pass, down to
Aosta."

"Might a humble mortal ask, 'Why Aosta?'" I ventured.

"Because it's beautiful, and beneficent, and a great many other things
which begin with B."

"You've never seen it, though," said Jack.

"But I've always wanted to see it, and as you and I have another
programme to carry out at present, it would be nice if Lord Lane would
go, and tell us all about it. He's promised me to keep a sort of
diary, for our benefit later."

"I saw the Duchess of Aosta married at Kingston-on-Thames," I
reflected aloud. "She was a very pretty girl. What am I to do after
I've made my pilgrimage to her country--about which, by the way, I
know practically nothing except that there's a poster in railway
stations which represents it as having bright pink mountains and a
purply-yellow sky?"

"Oh, after Aosta, I've no instructions," replied Molly, as if she
washed her hands of me and of my affairs. "For the rest, let Fate