and Lizzie get the trunk off."

Bettina stood by while we unbuckled and lifted down our traveling trunk.
She did not speak a word, beyond asking if we wouldn't wait until the
gardener came. On Tish's saying she had no time to wait, because she
wanted to put kerosene in the cylinders before the engine cooled,
Bettina lapsed into silence and stood by watching us.

Bettina took us upstairs. She had put Drummond's "Natural Law in the
Spiritual World" on my table and a couch was ready with pillows and a
knitted slumber robe. Very gently she helped us out of our veils and
dusters and closed the windows for fear of drafts.

"Dear mother is so reckless of drafts," she remarked. "Are you sure you
won't have tea?"

"We had some blackberry cordial with us," Aggie said, "and we all had a
little on the way. We had to change a tire and it made us thirsty."

"Change a tire!"

Aggie had taken off her bonnet and was pinning on the small lace cap she
wears, away from home, to hide where her hair is growing thin. In her
cap Aggie is a sweet-faced woman of almost fifty, rather ethereal. She
pinned on her cap and pulled her crimps down over her forehead.

"Yes," she observed. "A bridge went down with us and one of the nails
spoiled a new tire. I told Miss Carberry the bridge was unsafe, but she
thought, by taking it very fast--"