to welcome us home. But I did not go home just then. I should have done so if the machine had minded me and turned in at our driveway, but it did not.

   Across the way from us there is a fine lawn leading up to a beautiful greenhouse full of rare orchids and other plants. It is the pride of my very good neighbor, Jacob Rawlinson.

   The machine, as if moved by

    malice prépense

   , turned just as we came to the lawn, and began to back at railroad speed.

   I told Araminta that if she was tired of riding, now was the best time to stop; that she ought not to overdo it, and that I was going to get out myself as soon as I had seen her off.

   I saw her off.

   Then after one ineffectual jab at the brake, I left the machine hurriedly, and as I sat down on the sposhy lawn I heard a tremendous but not unmusical sound of falling glass——

   I tell Araminta that it isn't the running of an automobile that is expensive. It is the stopping of it.

    I wrote some lines once on a time

    In wondrous merry mood,

    And thought, as usual, men would say

    They were exceeding good.

    They were so queer, so very queer,

    I laughed as I would die;

    Albeit, in the general way,

    A sober man am I.

    I called my servant, and he came;

    How kind it was of him

 Prev. P 25/240 next