right your worshipfulness, level out."

"I wish you knock off that ‘your worshipfulness’ nonsense," a peeved Lady Mary retorted.

The instructor got amused. "Well your worshipfulness it’s like this - the ‘Commandant Woman’ don’t want us uniformed types to call the trainees ‘Ata–girls’ like the newspaper clowns do, so I’m just obeying orders."

Before Lady Mary could make a proper retort, the plane’s engine began to sputter thanks to a purposeful maladjustment by the vexing Welshman.

The instructor, in a no nonsense voice, ordered, "Take us down two hundred feet, and adjust the throttle. Do it now."

There was no detectable panic in the Lady from

 Dee Manor. She followed instructions. Leveled at three hundred feet, she adjusted the throttle per the guidelines in the Ferry Pilot’s Notes. That book, in a remarkably short space, provided the essential data needed for pilots who had never flown a particular plane before. But she lacked the experience to go with the text; the engine was still running ragged.

The frustrated instructor chided her, "Use you ears, your worshipfulness. Take those damn earphones off and listen to that engine! Then adjust the throttle to make it hum."

Mary removed her earphones. Then, using the throttle, she played the engine as her mother made her learn the piano - back when she was too young to rebel against a woman’s lot. Satisfied with the steady roar of the engine, she returned the earphones to her head.

The Welshman grudgingly remarked,

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