Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/126

 the other. You see, they are so good, and she said, as a conscientious tourist, she thought she ought to try every kind in the shop, so as to know which was nicest. But she felt odd afterwards, and refused one or two of the best courses at dinner.

The way that we have used our time at Tours is very much to our credit, I think—or rather to the Lightning Conductor's. In the mornings Brown has taken us on excursions outside the town, and in the afternoons, before dark, we have "done" the town itself, as Aunt Mary would say, though I hate the expression myself. But one whole day out of our three we spent in running with the car to Langeais and Azay-le-Rideau.

That new car is a treasure, and Brown drives as if there were a sort of sympathy between him and it. We go at a thrilling pace sometimes, but that is only when we have a long, straight road, empty as far as the eye can see. He is very considerate to "horse-drivers," as he calls them, and he says "for the sake of the sport" everyone driving an automobile should be careful of the rights of other persons on the road. He slows down at once, or even stops the car altogether, if we meet a restive horse. Once he got out and pacified a silly beast that was nervous, leading it past the car, and when it was quite quiet the old peasant who was driving exclaimed that if all automobilists were like us there would never be complaints. We managed to make up for lost time, though; and when Brown "lets her out," as he calls it, until we are going as fast as a quick train, I can tell you it is something worth living for. When the