"No, Aunt Ellen. There isn't any mud."

"There might just as well have been. Any time in the winter there's
liable to be mud. Will you see Crowley tomorrow and tell him we won't
have any more drivers who go away and hide in side streets?"

"Yes, I'll tell him, but he wasn't hiding, he was only a little way from
the entrance."

"Having no man in the family certainly _is_ inconvenient," came from
Chrystie, and then with sudden recollection: "What happened to Marquis de
Lafayette? Why didn't he come and get it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure." Lorry was looking out of the window.

"Well, I must say if we ask him to our parties the least he can do is to
find our hacks."

"I think so, too," said Aunt Ellen. "The young men of today seem to have
forgotten their manners."

"Forgotten them!" echoed Chrystie. "You can't forget what you never had."

"Oh, do keep quiet," came unexpectedly from Lorry. "The heat in that
place has given me a headache."

Then they were contrite, for Lorry almost never had anything, and their
attentions and inquiries had to be endured most of the way home.

Crowder, contrary to his expectations, found Pancha in high good spirits.