Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/265

 Dad, it's no stretch of language to speak of Brown as a "gentleman," and you really must get him a gentleman's berth, even if it's way off in Klondyke).

Early next morning we started for what proved to be the most beautiful drive we have yet had, as warm as summer, and sparkling with sunshine. We bowled along at a gentle pace through a fairyland of flowers and rivers, with billowy blue mountains rising into the sky, and showing here and there a distant ethereal peak of snow. Very soon we passed through, which Brown called the gate of the Riviera, and I should have liked to turn aside for a peep at Costebelle, which Brown thinks one of the loveliest places of all. But Aunt Mary and Jimmy both opposed me, saying that we ought to get on as soon as possible to Cannes—"to Cannes" was their constant cry.

Beyond Hyères the road became more and more superb. We were travelling now along the mountains of the Moors, gliding through groves of oak and woods of shimmering grey-green olives, with glimpses of the glittering sea on our right hand. Presently the way dipped to the verge of the sea as far as Fréjus, from which place it rose again to wind up and up into the heart of the Esterels. Though we mounted many hundreds of feet, the road was so well engineered that gradients were not very trying. Our agreeable Napier, at any rate, made nothing of them, but simply flew up at twelve or fourteen miles an hour. And the descent on the other side! My heart comes into my mouth when I think of it. "It's quite safe," said Brown; but it