"Well, family," she said, "I'm yours for the rest of the day. What shall we do?"
"Where is John?" inquired Ally. (John, it may be explained, was the name by which the family, with the exception of Nicky, had decided to address their future brother-in-law.)
"In the study with Dad."
"Has he arranged about having the five o'clock train stopped to-morrow afternoon?" inquired the careful Stiffy.
"No. We are going in a motor all the way to London," said Daphne. "Jack was keeping it as a surprise for me. It's a new one, a——"
"All the way to where?" inquired that economical humourist, Miss Veronica Vereker.
"London."
"H'm! Yes, I have heard it called that, now I come to think of it," conceded Nicky; "but it seems a waste of a good car, especially if it's a new one. Unless it's made of some special—Stiffy, what's the name of that stuff that won't burn?"
"Asbestos?"
"That's it—asbestos. I didn't expect to see you drive off down the road, somehow," continued Nicky in a somewhat injured voice, "just like an ordinary couple. I thought Polly would stamp his foot on the lawn, and a chasm would yawn at your feet, and in you'd both pop, and you would be gone for ever, like—Ally, who were those two people in the Latin book you had for a holiday task?"