"I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for Girls," said Molly, "and _I_ think it's a river." Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "What my mother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'I bet!' from the lips of a young lady!" "Your mother," said Molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" She disposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "And I'm not a young lady. Nobody is nowadays." "What _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" asked Mr. Sommerville deferentially. "I'm a _femme watt-man"_ said Molly, biting a large piece from a sandwich. Arnold explained to the others: "That's Parisian for a lady motor-driver; some name!" "Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on driving your car at the rate I saw it going past the house this morning," said her grandfather. He spoke with an assumption of grandfatherly severity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. "Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five," observed Miss Sommerville negligently. "Why, Mr. Sommerville," Arnold backed up his generation. "You can't call thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive like Molly." "Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church," continued Molly. "I keep my mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'll be because I wanted to. I never take my eye off the road, never once." "How you must enjoy the landscape," commented her grandfather. "Heavens! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried Molly, highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. "Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, and tell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. "Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course," explained Molly. "The fun of it is to watch the road eaten up." "It _is_ fascinating," Sylvia gave the other girl an unexpected reinforcement. "I've driven with Molly, and I've been actually hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels." "Oh, children, children! When you reach my age," groaned Arnold, "and have eaten up as many thousand miles as I, you'll stay at home." "I've driven for three years now," asserted Molly, "and every time I buy a new car I get the craze all over again. This one I have now is a peach of an eight. I never want to drive a six again,--never! I can bring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare Grandfather into a fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" She broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "What was it about Capua, anyhow?" She went to sit beside Sylvia, and put her arm around her shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her.