I began to foresee, however, that there would be some difficulty in doing this for long; and I felt considerable misgivings as to whether Mrs. Rollin would be induced to carry out the driving-tour programme in its entirety. The good humour in which she had started in the morning already showed signs of diminishing. In spite of the cleanliness of the inns, they were a good deal rougher than she liked; and though at the hostelry at St. Marie Sicché there was fortunately some meat, yet she was again obliged to put up with milkless coffee and butterless bread. It was the latter of these two grievances to which she especially objected. "Though I like _café au lait_ best myself," she said, "still I don't so much mind drinking black coffee, because that is quite correct, and a thing that numbers of people do--especially after dinner. But as for dry bread!--why, that's what paupers in the workhouse have to eat! I do hope, Kitty, that you won't mention to our friends at home that we had to put up with such mean food; I shouldn't like it to be said that I went travelling in places where the people were so poor or so stingy as not even to afford themselves butter!" We both did what we could to pacify her; Kitty by promising inviolable secrecy, and I by making the landlord rummage out some _confitures_, which, though but indifferent, would at all events save her from the reproach of having had to breakfast on dry bread, whether she liked it or no. This appeased her partially; but still I saw that her wonted serenity was not altogether restored. Up to this point we had been travelling along the highroad used by the diligences, the _route nationale, royale,_ or _imperiale_, as it is called, according to which party happens to be in power. But we turned off from it next day, on leaving St. Marie Sicché, and took to smaller and inferior roads by which we ascended to higher ground, until we reached the town of Zicavo, perched on the side of a steep hill and surrounded by chestnut trees.