I was so tired after that long day from Cuneo to Milan that I wouldn't get up to go and look at the cathedral. I'd seen it by moonlight, and it couldn't be better by day, so I just lay in bed, and made a comfortable toilet afterwards without hurrying, which was a nice change, and gave me time to use my electric face-roller. When the girls came back, they were raving about magnificent statues, aisles, columns, windows, vistas, gargoyles, and saints' bodies in gorgeous shrines of silver. Beechy had apparently forgotten that she'd been vexed with me over night, and I was relieved, for she will _not_ agree with me about the Prince, and I don't know what I should do if she really did carry out any of her threats. If she _should_ put on the long frock she had before Mr. Kidder died (which she _says_ she's got with her, locked up in her portmanteau), and should fix her hair on top of her head, that would be just about the end of my fun, once and for all. But she is such a dear girl at heart, in spite of the peculiarities which she has inherited from poor Simon, I can't think (if I manage her pretty well) that she would do anything to spoil my first real good time and hurt my feelings. We had an early lunch, and started about one with such a crowd outside the hotel to see us go away, that we made up our minds there must be precious few automobiles in Milan, big and busy city as it is. The whole party was so taken up with the Cathedral, that for a while they could talk of nothing but Gian Galeazzo Visconti (who seemed to have spent his life either in murdering his relations or founding churches), or marble from the valley of Tosa, or German architects who had made the building differ from any other in Italy, or the impulse Napoleon had given to work on the facade, or the view from the roof all the way to Como with the Apennines and lots of other mountains whose names I'd never heard; but presently as we got out into the suburbs the road began to be so awful that no one could talk rationally on any subject. We three Americans weren't quite so disgusted as Sir Ralph and Mr. Barrymore seemed to be, for we are used to roads being pretty bad outside large cities; but the gentlemen were very cross, and exclaimed that it was a disgrace to Milan. Our poor automobile had to go bumping and grinding along through heaps of sharp stones, more like the dry bed of a mountain torrent than a road; and my nerves were on edge when Mr. Barrymore told us not to be frightened if we heard an explosion like a shot, because it would only be one of the tyres bursting. No pretty little ladylike automobile, said he, could possibly hope to come through without breaking her bones; only fine, manly motor-cars, with noble masculine tyres, could wisely attempt the feat; but ours would be all right, even if a tyre did go, for the damage could be repaired inside half an hour.