Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/70

54 for this one's clear features, good gray eyes, brown skin, and well-made figure, they were nothing miraculous, since it is admitted that even a lower grade of beings, grooms and footmen, are generally chosen as ornaments to the establishments they adorn. Why should n't a chauffeur be picked out from among his fellows to do credit to a fine, sixty-horse-power blue motor-car? Besides, a young man who can't look rather handsome in a chauffeur's cap and neat leather coat and leggings might as well go and hang himself.

The Leather Person opened the door of the car for me, that I might put in the rugs. I murmured "thank you" and he bowed. No sooner had I arranged my affairs, and slipped the scent-bottle and bottle of salts, newly filled, into a dainty little case under the window, when Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel appeared.

I have met few, if any, queens in daily life, but I 'm almost sure that the Queen of England, for instance, would n't consider it beneath her dignity to take some notice of her chauffeur's existence if she were starting on a motor tour. Lady Turnour was miles above it, however. So far as she was concerned, one would have thought that the car ran itself; that at sight of her and Sir Samuel, the arbiters of its destiny, its heart began to beat, its body to tremble with delight at the honour in store for it.

"Tell him to shut the windows," said her ladyship, when she was settled in her place. "Does he think I 'm going to travel on a day like this with all the wind on the Riviera blowing my head off?"

The imperial order was passed on to "him," who was