"Suppose we try it now!" suggested Bee. "Will you have Amos bring out the horses?"
Bee is always scrupulously polite about not giving orders to my servants direct, although I have begged her to consider them as her own. I always think that a hostess who neglects to make her guests feel at liberty to give an order either is not accustomed to servants or else stands in too much awe of them.
Jack, the bulldog, assisted in our preparations with much getting under our feet and many hearty tail-waggings. Little he knew what was to follow!
Bee carefully gave me my position at the right, and took her own.
"Now," she said, "there are two equally correct ways of sitting in a victoria, neither of which you are doing."
I was quite comfortable, but I immediately sat up.
"It depends upon what you have on," Bee proceeded. "If you are tailor-made and it is morning, you sit straight like this. If it is afternoon and you are all of a Parisian fluff, you recline like this and put your feet as far out on the cushion as you can. It shows off your instep."
"It comes very near showing off your garter," I said, indignantly. "You needn't expect me to lie down like that and put my feet on the coachman's back. Aubrey would have a fit."
"You are positively low," said Bee, straightening herself. I giggled helplessly at her instructions. They were so beyond my power to carry them out properly.
"Can't I sit like this? Can't I be comfortable? What's a victoria for, anyhow?" I demanded.