"Thank you," said I, shaking hands. "And you look glorious. Hullo! You've let your hair grow. I am glad." "Think it's an improvement?" "If possible." The well-marked eyebrows went up, the bright brown eyes regarded me quizzically, the faint familiar smile hung maddeningly on the red lips. "Polite as ever," she flashed. "Put it down to the bath," said I. "Cleanliness is next to--er--devotion." "Yes, and he's been counting the days," broke in Jill. "He has really. Of course, we all have. But----Oh, Adele, I'm so glad you've come." Adele drew my cousin's arm within her own. "So'm I," she said quietly. "And now--I did have a dressing-case once. And a steamer-trunk.... D'you think it's any good looking for them?" Twenty minutes later we were all three--four with Nobby--on the front seat of the Rolls, which was nosing its way gingerly out of the town. "I wonder if you realize," said Adele, "what a beautiful country you live in." At the moment we were immediately between an unpleasantly crowded tram and a fourth-rate beerhouse. "Don't you have trams?" said I. "Or does alcohol mean so much to you? I suppose prohibition is a bit of a jar." "To tell you the truth, I was thinking of the Isle of Wight. It looked so exquisite as we were coming in. Just like a toy continent out of a giant's nursery." "Before the day is out," I prophesied, "you shall see finer things than that." Once clear of the streets, I gave the car her head. For a while we slid past low-lying ground, verdant and fresh and blowing, but flat and sparsely timbered, with coppices here and there and, sometimes, elms in the hedgerows, and, now and again, a parcel of youngster oaks about a green--fair country enough at any time, and at this summer sundown homely and radiant. But there was better to come. The car fled on.