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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Katy Did Next, by Susan Coolidge
+#4 in our series by Susan Coolidge
+
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+Title: What Katy Did Next
+
+Author: Susan Coolidge
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8995]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 31, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT KATY DID NEXT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: She paid a visit to the little garden.
+FRONTISPIECE.]
+
+
+WHAT KATY DID NEXT
+
+BY
+
+SUSAN COOLIDGE
+
+
+
+This Story is Dedicated
+
+TO
+
+THE MANY LITTLE GIRLS
+
+(SOME OF THEM GROWN TO BE GREAT GIRLS NOW),
+
+_Who, during the last twelve years, have begged that something
+more might be told them about KATY CARR, and what she did after
+leaving school._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST
+
+II. AN INVITATION
+
+III. ROSE AND ROSEBUD
+
+IV. ON THE "SPARTACUS"
+
+V. STORY-BOOK ENGLAND
+
+VI. ACROSS THE CHANNEL
+
+VII. THE PENSION SUISSE
+
+VIII. ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES
+
+IX. A ROMAN HOLIDAY
+
+X. CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN
+
+XI. NEXT
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+SHE PAID A VISIT TO THE LITTLE GARDEN
+
+"SHE WAS HAVING THE MEASLES ON THE
+BACK SHELF OF THE CLOSET, YOU KNOW"
+
+KATY WAS FEEDING GRETCHEN OUT OF A BIG
+BOWL FULL OF BREAD AND MILK
+
+AMY WAS LEFT IN PEACE WITH HER FAWN
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.
+
+
+The September sun was glinting cheerfully into a pretty bedroom
+furnished with blue. It danced on the glossy hair and bright eyes of two
+girls, who sat together hemming ruffles for a white muslin dress. The
+half-finished skirt of the dress lay on the bed; and as each crisp
+ruffle was completed, the girls added it to the snowy heap, which looked
+like a drift of transparent clouds or a pile of foamy white-of-egg
+beaten stiff enough to stand alone.
+
+These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr, and it was Clover's first
+evening dress for which they were hemming ruffles. It was nearly two
+years since a certain visit made by Johnnie to Inches Mills, of which
+some of you have read in "Nine Little Goslings;" and more than three
+since Clover and Katy had returned home from the boarding-school at
+Hillsover.
+
+Clover was now eighteen. She was a very small Clover still, but it would
+have been hard to find anywhere a prettier little maiden than she had
+grown to be. Her skin was so exquisitely fair that her arms and wrists
+and shoulders, which were round and dimpled like a baby's, seemed cut
+out of daisies or white rose leaves. Her thick, brown hair waved and
+coiled gracefully about her head. Her smile was peculiarly sweet; and
+the eyes, always Clover's chief beauty, had still that pathetic look
+which made them irresistible to tender-hearted people.
+
+Elsie, who adored Clover, considered her as beautiful as girls in
+books, and was proud to be permitted to hem ruffles for the dress in
+which she was to burst upon the world. Though, as for that, not much
+"bursting" was possible in Burnet, where tea-parties of a middle-aged
+description, and now and then a mild little dance, represented "gayety"
+and "society." Girls "came out" very much, as the sun comes out in the
+morning,--by slow degrees and gradual approaches, with no particular
+one moment which could be fixed upon as having been the crisis of the
+joyful event.
+
+"There," said Elsie, adding another ruffle to the pile on the
+bed,--"there's the fifth done. It's going to be ever so pretty, I think.
+I'm glad you had it all white; it's a great deal nicer."
+
+"Cecy wanted me to have a blue bodice and sash," said Clover, "but I
+wouldn't. Then she tried to persuade me to get a long spray of pink
+roses for the skirt."
+
+"I'm so glad you didn't! Cecy was always crazy about pink roses. I only
+wonder she didn't wear them when she was married!"
+
+Yes; the excellent Cecy, who at thirteen had announced her intention to
+devote her whole life to teaching Sunday School, visiting the poor, and
+setting a good example to her more worldly contemporaries, had actually
+forgotten these fine resolutions, and before she was twenty had become
+the wife of Sylvester Slack, a young lawyer in a neighboring town!
+Cecy's wedding and wedding-clothes, and Cecy's house-furnishing had been
+the great excitement of the preceding year in Burnet; and a fresh
+excitement had come since in the shape of Cecy's baby, now about two
+months old, and named "Katherine Clover," after her two friends. This
+made it natural that Cecy and her affairs should still be of interest in
+the Carr household; and Johnnie, at the time we write of, was making her
+a week's visit.
+
+"She _was_ rather wedded to them," went on Clover, pursuing the subject
+of the pink roses. "She was almost vexed when I wouldn't buy the spray.
+But it cost lots, and I didn't want it in the least, so I stood firm.
+Besides, I always said that my first party dress should be plain white.
+Girls in novels always wear white to their first balls; and fresh
+flowers are a great deal prettier, any way, than artificial. Katy says
+she'll give me some violets to wear."
+
+"Oh, will she? That will be lovely!" cried the adoring Elsie. "Violets
+look just like you, somehow. Oh, Clover, what sort of a dress do you
+think I shall have when I grow up and go to parties and things? Won't it
+be awfully interesting when you and I go out to choose it?"
+
+Just then the noise of some one running upstairs quickly made the
+sisters look up from their work. Footsteps are very significant at
+times, and these footsteps suggested haste and excitement.
+
+Another moment, the door opened, and Katy dashed in, calling out,
+"Papa!--Elsie, Clover, where's papa?"
+
+"He went over the river to see that son of Mr. White's who broke his
+leg. Why, what's the matter?" asked Clover.
+
+"Is somebody hurt?" inquired Elsie, startled at Katy's agitated looks.
+
+"No, not hurt, but poor Mrs. Ashe is in such trouble."
+
+Mrs. Ashe, it should be explained, was a widow who had come to Burnet
+some months previously, and had taken a pleasant house not far from the
+Carrs'. She was a pretty, lady-like woman, with a particularly graceful,
+appealing manner, and very fond of her one child, a little girl. Katy
+and papa both took a fancy to her at once; and the families had grown
+neighborly and intimate in a short time, as people occasionally do when
+circumstances are favorable.
+
+"I'll tell you all about it in a minute," went on Katy. "But first I
+must find Alexander, and send him off to meet papa and beg him to hurry
+home." She went to the head of the stairs as she spoke, and called
+"Debby! Debby!" Debby answered. Katy gave her direction, and then came
+back again to the room where the other two were sitting.
+
+"Now," she said, speaking more collectedly, "I must explain as fast as I
+can, for I have got to go back. You know that Mrs. Ashe's little nephew
+is here for a visit, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, he came on Saturday."
+
+"Well, he was ailing all day yesterday, and to-day he is worse, and she
+is afraid it is scarlet-fever. Luckily, Amy was spending the day with
+the Uphams yesterday, so she scarcely saw the boy at all; and as soon
+as her mother became alarmed, she sent her out into the garden to play,
+and hasn't let her come indoors since, so she can't have been exposed
+to any particular danger yet. I went by the house on my way down
+street, and there sat the poor little thing all alone in the arbor,
+with her dolly in her lap, looking so disconsolate. I spoke to her over
+the fence, and Mrs. Ashe heard my voice, and opened the upstairs window
+and called to me. She said Amy had never had the fever, and that the
+very idea of her having it frightened her to death. She is such a
+delicate child, you know."
+
+"Oh, poor Mrs. Ashe!" cried Clover; "I am so sorry for her! Well, Katy,
+what did you do?"
+
+"I hope I didn't do wrong, but I offered to bring Amy here. Papa won't
+object, I am almost sure."
+
+"Why, of course he won't. Well?"
+
+"I am going back now to fetch Amy. Mrs. Ashe is to let Ellen, who hasn't
+been in the room with the little boy, pack a bagful of clothes and put
+it out on the steps, and I shall send Alexander for it by and by. You
+can't think how troubled poor Mrs. Ashe was. She couldn't help crying
+when she said that Amy was all she had left in the world. And I nearly
+cried too, I was so sorry for her. She was so relieved when I said that
+we would take Amy. You know she has a great deal of confidence in papa."
+
+"Yes, and in you too. Where will you put Amy to sleep, Katy?"
+
+"What do you think would be best? In Dorry's room?"
+
+"I think she'd better come in here with you, and I'll go into Dorry's
+room. She is used to sleeping with her mother, you know, and she would
+be lonely if she were left to herself."
+
+"Perhaps that will be better, only it is a great bother for you,
+Clovy dear."
+
+"I don't mind," responded Clover, cheerfully. "I rather like to change
+about and try a new room once in a while. It's as good as going on a
+journey--almost."
+
+She pushed aside the half-finished dress as she spoke, opened a drawer,
+took out its contents, and began to carry them across the entry to
+Dorry's room, doing everything with the orderly deliberation that was
+characteristic of whatever Clover did. Her preparations were almost
+complete before Katy returned, bringing with her little Amy Ashe.
+
+Amy was a tall child of eight, with a frank, happy face, and long light
+hair hanging down her back. She looked like the pictures of "Alice in
+Wonderland;" but just at that moment it was a very woful little Alice
+indeed that she resembled, for her cheeks were stained with tears and
+her eyes swollen with recent crying.
+
+"Why, what is the matter?" cried kind little Clover, taking Amy in her
+arms, and giving her a great hug. "Aren't you glad that you are coming
+to make us a visit? We are."
+
+"Mamma didn't kiss me for good-by," sobbed the little girl. "She didn't
+come downstairs at all. She just put her head out of the window and
+said, 'Good-by; Amy, be very good, and don't make Miss Carr any
+trouble,' and then she went away. I never went anywhere before without
+kissing mamma for good-by."
+
+"Mamma was afraid to kiss you for fear she might give you the fever,"
+explained Katy, taking her turn as a comforter. "It wasn't because she
+forgot. She felt worse about it than you did, I imagine. You know the
+thing she cares most for is that you shall not be ill as your cousin
+Walter is. She would rather do anything than have that happen. As soon
+as he gets well she will kiss you dozens of times, see if she doesn't.
+Meanwhile, she says in this note that you must write her a little letter
+every day, and she will hang a basket by a string out of the window, and
+you and I will go and drop the letters into the basket, and stand by the
+gate and see her pull it up. That will be funny, won't it? We will play
+that you are my little girl, and that you have a real mamma and a
+make-believe mamma."
+
+"Shall I sleep with you?" demanded Amy,
+
+"Yes, in that bed over there."
+
+"It's a pretty bed," pronounced Amy after examining it gravely for a
+moment. "Will you tell me a story every morning?"
+
+[Illustration: "She was having the measles on the back shelf of the
+closet, you know."]
+
+"If you don't wake me up too early. My stories are always sleepy
+till seven o'clock. Let us see what Ellen has packed in that bag,
+and then I'll give you some drawers of your own, and we will put the
+things away."
+
+The bag was full of neat little frocks and underclothes stuffed hastily
+in all together. Katy took them out, smoothing the folds, and crimping
+the tumbled ruffles with her fingers. As she lifted the last skirt, Amy,
+with a cry of joy, pounced on something that lay beneath it.
+
+"It is Maria Matilda," she said, "I'm glad of that. I thought Ellen
+would forget her, and the poor child wouldn't know what to do with me
+and her little sister not coming to see her for so long. She was having
+the measles on the back shelf of the closet, you know, and nobody would
+have heard her if she had cried ever so loud."
+
+"What a pretty face she has!" said Katy, taking the doll out of
+Amy's hands.
+
+"Yes, but not so pretty as Mabel. Miss Upham says that Mabel is the
+prettiest child she ever saw. Look, Miss Clover," lifting the other doll
+from the table where she had laid it; "hasn't she got _sweet_ eyes?
+She's older than Maria Matilda, and she knows a great deal more. She's
+begun on French verbs!"
+
+"Not really! Which ones?"
+
+"Oh, only 'J'aime, tu aimes, il aime,' you know,--the same that our
+class is learning at school. She hasn't tried any but that. Sometimes
+she says it quite nicely, but sometimes she's very stupid, and I have to
+scold her." Amy had quite recovered her spirits by this time.
+
+"Are these the only dolls you have?"
+
+"Oh, please don't call them _that!_" urged Amy. "It hurts their feelings
+dreadfully. I never let them know that they are dolls. They think that
+they are real children, only sometimes when they are very bad I use the
+word for a punishment. I've got several other children. There's old
+Ragazza. My uncle named her, and she's made of rag, but she has such bad
+rheumatism that I don't play with her any longer; I just give her
+medicine. Then there's Effie Deans, she's only got one leg; and Mopsa
+the Fairy, she's a tiny one made out of china; and Peg of
+Linkinvaddy,--but she don't count, for she's all come to pieces."
+
+"What very queer names your children have!" said Elsie, who had come in
+during the enumeration.
+
+"Yes; Uncle Ned named them. He's a very funny uncle, but he's nice. He's
+always so much interested in my children."
+
+"There's papa now!" cried Katy; and she ran downstairs to meet him.
+
+"Did I do right?" she asked anxiously after she had told her story.
+
+"Yes, my dear, perfectly right," replied Dr. Carr. "I only hope Amy was
+taken away in time. I will go round at once to see Mrs. Ashe and the
+boy; and, Katy, keep away from me when I come back, and keep the others
+away, till I have changed my coat."
+
+It is odd how soon and how easily human beings accustom themselves to a
+new condition of things. When sudden illness comes, or sudden sorrow, or
+a house is burned up, or blown down by a tornado, there are a few hours
+or days of confusion and bewilderment, and then people gather up their
+wits and their courage and set to work to repair damages. They clear
+away ruins, plant, rebuild, very much as ants whose hill has been
+trodden upon, after running wildly about for a little while, begin all
+together to reconstruct the tiny cone of sand which is so important in
+their eyes. In a very short time the changes which at first seem so sad
+and strange become accustomed and matter-of-course things which no
+longer surprise us.
+
+It seemed to the Carrs after a few days as if they had always had Amy in
+the house with them. Papa's daily visit to the sick-room, their
+avoidance of him till after he had "changed his coat," Amy's lessons and
+games of play, her dressing and undressing, the walks with the
+make-believe mamma, the dropping of notes into the little basket, seemed
+part of a system of things which had been going on for a long, long
+time, and which everybody would miss should they suddenly stop.
+
+But they by no means suddenly stopped. Little Walter Ashe's case proved
+to be rather a severe one; and after he had begun to mend, he caught
+cold somehow and was taken worse again. There were some serious
+symptoms, and for a few days Dr. Carr did not feel sure how things would
+turn. He did not speak of his anxiety at home, but kept silence and a
+cheerful face, as doctors know how to do. Only Katy, who was more
+intimate with her father than the rest, guessed that things were going
+gravely at the other house, and she was too well trained to ask
+questions. The threatening symptoms passed off, however, and little
+Walter slowly got better; but it was a long convalescence, and Mrs. Ashe
+grew thin and pale before he began to look rosy. There was no one on
+whom she could devolve the charge of the child. His mother was dead; his
+father, an overworked business man, had barely time to run up once a
+week to see about him; there was no one at his home but a housekeeper,
+in whom Mrs. Ashe had not full confidence. So the good aunt denied
+herself the sight of her own child, and devoted her strength and time to
+Walter; and nearly two months passed, and still little Amy remained at
+Dr. Carr's.
+
+She was entirely happy there. She had grown very fond of Katy, and was
+perfectly at home with the others. Phil and Johnnie, who had returned
+from her visit to Cecy, were by no means too old or too proud to be
+play-fellows to a child of eight; and with all the older members of the
+family Amy was a chosen pet. Debby baked turnovers, and twisted cinnamon
+cakes into all sorts of fantastic shapes to please her; Alexander would
+let her drive if she happened to sit on the front seat of the carryall;
+Dr. Carr was seldom so tired that he could not tell her a story,--and
+nobody told such nice stories as Dr. Carr, Amy thought; Elsie invented
+all manner of charming games for the hour before bedtime; Clover made
+wonderful capes and bonnets for Mabel and Maria Matilda; and Katy--Katy
+did all sorts of things.
+
+Katy had a peculiar gift with children which is not easy to define. Some
+people possess it, and some do not; it cannot be learned, it comes by
+nature. She was bright and firm and equable all at once. She both amused
+and influenced them. There was something about her which excited the
+childish imagination, and always they felt her sympathy. Amy was a
+tractable child, and intelligent beyond her age, but she was never quite
+so good with any one as with Katy. She followed her about like a little
+lover; she lavished upon her certain special words and caresses which
+she gave to no one else; and would kneel on her lap, patting Katy's
+shoulders with her soft hand, and cooing up into her face like a happy
+dove, for a half-hour together. Katy laughed at these demonstrations,
+but they pleased her very much. She loved to be loved, as all
+affectionate people do, but most of all to be loved by a child.
+
+At last, the long convalescence ended, Walter was carried away to his
+father, with every possible precaution against fatigue and exposure, and
+an army of workpeople was turned into Mrs. Ashe's house. Plaster was
+scraped and painted, wall-papers torn down, mattresses made over, and
+clothing burned. At last Dr. Carr pronounced the premises in a sanitary
+condition, and Mrs. Ashe sent for her little girl to come home again.
+
+Amy was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her mother; but at the last
+moment she clung to Katy and cried as if her heart would break.
+
+"I want you too," she said. "Oh, if Dr. Carr would only let you come and
+live with me and mamma, I should be so happy! I shall be so lone-ly!"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Clover. "Lonely with mamma, and those poor children of
+yours who have been wondering all these weeks what has become of you!
+They'll want a great deal of attention at first, I am sure; medicine and
+new clothes and whippings,--all manner of things. You remember I
+promised to make a dress for Effie Deans out of that blue and brown
+plaid like Johnnie's balmoral. I mean to begin it to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, will you?"--forgetting her grief--"that will be lovely. The skirt
+needn't be _very_ full, you know. Effie doesn't walk much, because of
+only having one leg. She will be _so_ pleased, for she hasn't had a new
+dress I don't know when."
+
+Consoled by the prospect of Effie's satisfaction, Amy departed quite
+cheerfully, and Mrs. Ashe was spared the pain of seeing her only child
+in tears on the first evening of their reunion. But Amy talked so
+constantly of Katy, and seemed to love her so much, that it put a plan
+into her mother's head which led to important results, as the next
+chapter will show.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+AN INVITATION.
+
+
+It is a curious fact, and makes life very interesting, that, generally
+speaking, none of us have any expectation that things are going to
+happen till the very moment when they do happen. We wake up some morning
+with no idea that a great happiness is at hand, and before night it has
+come, and all the world is changed for us; or we wake bright and
+cheerful, with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our
+sky, to put all the sunshine out for a while, and before noon all is
+dark. Nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief. No instinct bids
+us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram, or the
+lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good
+or ill. And because it may be, and often is, happy tidings that come,
+and joyful things which happen, each fresh day as it dawns upon us is
+like an unread story, full of possible interest and adventure, to be
+made ours as soon as we have cut the pages and begun to read.
+
+Nothing whispered to Katy Carr, as she sat at the window mending a long
+rent in Johnnie's school coat, and saw Mrs. Ashe come in at the side
+gate and ring the office bell, that the visit had any special
+significance for her. Mrs. Ashe often did come to the office to consult
+Dr. Carr. Amy might not be quite well, Katy thought, or there might be a
+letter with something about Walter in it, or perhaps matters had gone
+wrong at the house, where paperers and painters were still at work. So
+she went calmly on with her darning, drawing the "ravelling," with which
+her needle was threaded, carefully in and out, and taking nice even
+stitches without one prophetic thrill or tremor; while, if only she
+could have looked through the two walls and two doors which separated
+the room in which she sat from the office, and have heard what Mrs. Ashe
+was saying, the school coat would have been thrown to the winds, and for
+all her tall stature and propriety, she would have been skipping with
+delight and astonishment. For Mrs. Ashe was asking papa to let her do
+the very thing of all others that she most longed to do; she was asking
+him to let Katy go with her to Europe!
+
+"I am not very well," she told the Doctor. "I got tired and run down
+while Walter was ill, and I don't seem to throw it off as I hoped I
+should. I feel as if a change would do me good. Don't you think so
+yourself?"
+
+"Yes, I do," Dr. Carr admitted.
+
+"This idea of Europe is not altogether a new one," continued Mrs. Ashe.
+"I have always meant to go some time, and have put it off, partly
+because I dreaded going alone, and didn't know anybody whom I exactly
+wanted to take with me. But if you will let me have Katy, Dr. Carr, it
+will settle all my difficulties. Amy loves her dearly, and so do I; she
+is just the companion I need; if I have her with me, I sha'n't be afraid
+of anything. I do hope you will consent."
+
+"How long do you mean to be away?" asked Dr. Carr, divided between
+pleasure at these compliments to Katy and dismay at the idea of
+losing her.
+
+"About a year, I think. My plans are rather vague as yet; but my idea
+was to spend a few weeks in Scotland and England first,--I have some
+cousins in London who will be good to us; and an old friend of mine
+married a gentleman who lives on the Isle of Wight; perhaps we might go
+there. Then we could cross over to France and visit Paris and a few
+other places; and before it gets cold go down to Nice, and from there to
+Italy. Katy would like to see Italy. Don't you think so?"
+
+"I dare say she would," said Dr. Carr, with a smile. "She would be a
+queer girl if she didn't."
+
+"There is one reason why I thought Italy would be particularly pleasant
+this winter for me and for her too," went on Mrs. Ashe; "and that is,
+because my brother will be there. He is a lieutenant in the navy, you
+know, and his ship, the 'Natchitoches,' is one of the Mediterranean
+squadron. They will be in Naples by and by, and if we were there at the
+same time we should have Ned to go about with; and he would take us to
+the receptions on the frigate, and all that, which would be a nice
+chance for Katy. Then toward spring I should like to go to Florence and
+Venice, and visit the Italian lakes and Switzerland in the early summer.
+But all this depends on your letting Katy go. If you decide against it,
+I shall give the whole thing up. But you won't decide against
+it,"--coaxingly,--"you will be kinder than that. I will take the best
+possible care of her, and do all I can to make her happy, if only you
+will consent to lend her to me; and I shall consider it _such_ a favor.
+And it is to cost you nothing. You understand, Doctor, she is to be my
+guest all through. That is a point I want to make clear in the outset;
+for she goes for my sake, and I cannot take her on any other conditions.
+Now, Dr. Carr, please, please! I am sure you won't deny me, when I have
+so set my heart upon having her."
+
+Mrs. Ashe was very pretty and persuasive, but still Dr. Carr hesitated.
+To send Katy for a year's pleasuring in Europe was a thing that had
+never occurred to his mind as possible. The cost alone would have
+prevented; for country doctors with six children are not apt to be rich
+men, even in the limited and old-fashioned construction of the word
+"wealth." It seemed equally impossible to let her go at Mrs. Ashe's
+expense; at the same time, the chance was such a good one, and Mrs. Ashe
+so much in earnest and so urgent, that it was difficult to refuse point
+blank. He finally consented to take time for consideration before making
+his decision.
+
+"I will talk it over with Katy," he said. "The child ought to have a say
+in the matter; and whatever we decide, you must let me thank you in her
+name as well as my own for your great kindness in proposing it."
+
+"Doctor, I'm not kind at all, and I don't want to be thanked. My desire
+to take Katy with me to Europe is purely selfish. I am a lonely person,"
+she went on; "I have no mother or sister, and no cousins of my own age.
+My brother's profession keeps him at sea; I scarcely ever see him. I
+have no one but a couple of old aunts, too feeble in health to travel
+with me or to be counted on in case of any emergency. You see, I am a
+real case for pity."
+
+Mrs. Ashe spoke gayly, but her brown eyes were dim with tears as she
+ended her little appeal. Dr. Carr, who was soft-hearted where women were
+concerned, was touched. Perhaps his face showed it, for Mrs. Ashe added
+in a more hopeful tone,--
+
+"But I won't tease any more. I know you will not refuse me unless you
+think it right and necessary; and," she continued mischievously, "I have
+great faith in Katy as an ally. I am pretty sure that she will say that
+she wants to go."
+
+And indeed Katy's cry of delight when the plan was proposed to her said
+that sufficiently, without need of further explanation. To go to Europe
+for a year with Mrs. Ashe and Amy seemed simply too delightful to be
+true. All the things she had heard about and read about--cathedrals,
+pictures, Alpine peaks, famous places, famous people--came rushing into
+her mind in a sort of bewildering tide as dazzling as it was
+overwhelming. Dr. Carr's objections, his reluctance to part with her,
+melted before the radiance of her satisfaction. He had no idea that
+Katy would care so much about it. After all, it was a great
+chance,--perhaps the only one of the sort that she would ever have.
+Mrs. Ashe could well afford to give Katy this treat, he knew; and it
+was quite true what she said, that it was a favor to her as well as to
+Katy. This train of reasoning led to its natural results. Dr. Carr
+began to waver in his mind.
+
+But, the first excitement over, Katy's second thoughts were more sober
+ones. How could papa manage without her for a whole year, she asked
+herself. He would miss her, she well knew, and might not the charge of
+the house be too much for Clover? The preserves were almost all made,
+that was one comfort; but there were the winter clothes to be seen to;
+Dorry needed new flannels, Elsie's dresses must be altered over for
+Johnnie,--there were cucumbers to pickle, the coal to order! A host of
+housewifely cares began to troop through Katy's mind, and a little
+pucker came into her forehead, and a worried look across the face which
+had been so bright a few minutes before. Strange to say, it was that
+little pucker and the look of worry which decided Dr. Carr.
+
+"She is only twenty-one," he reflected; "hardly out of childhood. I
+don't want her to settle into an anxious, drudging state and lose her
+youth with caring for us all. She shall go; though how we are to manage
+without her I don't see. Little Clover will have to come to the fore,
+and show what sort of stuff there is in her."
+
+"Little Clover" came gallantly "to the fore" when the first shock of
+surprise was over, and she had relieved her mind with one long private
+cry over having to do without Katy for a year. Then she wiped her eyes,
+and began to revel unselfishly in the idea of her sister's having so
+great a treat. Anything and everything seemed possible to secure it for
+her; and she made light of all Katy's many anxieties and apprehensions.
+
+"My dear child, I know a flannel undershirt when I see one, just as well
+as you do," she declared. "Tucks in Johnnie's dress, forsooth! why, of
+course. Ripping out a tuck doesn't require any superhuman ingenuity!
+Give me your scissors, and I'll show you at once. Quince marmalade?
+Debby can make that. Hers is about as good as yours; and if it wasn't,
+what should we care, as long as you are ascending Mont Blanc, and
+hob-nobbing with Michael Angelo and the crowned heads of Europe? I'll
+make the spiced peaches! I'll order the kindling! And if there ever
+comes a time when I feel lost and can't manage without advice, I'll go
+across to Mrs. Hall. Don't worry about us. We shall get on happily and
+easily; in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if I developed such a turn for
+housekeeping, that when you come back the family refused to change, and
+you had just to sit for the rest of your life and twirl your thumbs and
+watch me do it! Wouldn't that be fine?" and Clover laughed merrily. "So,
+Katy darling, cast that shadow from your brow, and look as a girl ought
+to look who's going to Europe. Why, if it were I who were going, I
+should simply stand on my head every moment of the time!"
+
+"Not a very convenient position for packing," said Katy, smiling.
+
+"Yes, it is, if you just turn your trunk upside down! When I think of
+all the delightful things you are going to do, I can hardly sit still. I
+_love_ Mrs. Ashe for inviting you."
+
+"So do I," said Katy, soberly. "It was the kindest thing! I can't think
+why she did it."
+
+"Well, I can," replied Clover, always ready to defend Katy even against
+herself. "She did it because she wanted you, and she wanted you because
+you are the dearest old thing in the world, and the nicest to have
+about. You needn't say you're not, for you are! Now, Katy, don't waste
+another thought on such miserable things as pickles and undershirts. We
+shall get along perfectly well, I do assure you. Just fix your mind
+instead on the dome of St. Peter's, or try to fancy how you'll feel the
+first time you step into a gondola or see the Mediterranean. There will
+be a moment! I feel a forty-horse power of housekeeping developing
+within me; and what fun it will be to get your letters! We shall fetch
+out the Encyclopaedia and the big Atlas and the 'History of Modern
+Europe,' and read all about everything you see and all the places you
+go to; and it will be as good as a lesson in geography and history and
+political economy all combined, only a great deal more interesting! We
+shall stick out all over with knowledge before you come back; and this
+makes it a plain duty to go, if it were only for our sakes." With these
+zealous promises, Katy was forced to be content. Indeed, contentment
+was not difficult with such a prospect of delight before her. When once
+her little anxieties had been laid aside, the idea of the coming
+journey grew in pleasantness every moment. Night after night she and
+papa and the children pored over maps and made out schemes for travel
+and sight-seeing, every one of which was likely to be discarded as soon
+as the real journey began. But they didn't know that, and it made no
+real difference. Such schemes are the preliminary joys of travel, and
+it doesn't signify that they come to nothing after they have served
+their purpose.
+
+Katy learned a great deal while thus talking over what she was to see
+and do. She read every scrap she could lay her hand on which related to
+Rome or Florence or Venice or London. The driest details had a charm for
+her now that she was likely to see the real places. She went about with
+scraps of paper in her pocket, on which were written such things as
+these: "Forum. When built? By whom built? More than one?" "What does
+_Cenacola_ mean?" "Cecilia Metella. Who was she?" "Find out about Saint
+Catherine of Siena." "Who was Beatrice Cenci?" How she wished that she
+had studied harder and more carefully before this wonderful chance came
+to her. People always wish this when they are starting for Europe; and
+they wish it more and more after they get there, and realize of what
+value exact ideas and information and a fuller knowledge of the foreign
+languages are to all travellers; how they add to the charm of everything
+seen, and enhance the ease of everything done.
+
+All Burnet took an interest in Katy's plans, and almost everybody had
+some sort of advice or help, or some little gift to offer. Old Mrs.
+Worrett, who, though fatter than ever, still retained the power of
+locomotion, drove in from Conic Section in her roomy carryall with the
+present of a rather obsolete copy of "Murray's Guide," in faded red
+covers, which her father had used in his youth, and which she was sure
+Katy would find convenient; also a bottle of Brown's Jamaica Ginger, in
+case of sea-sickness. Debby's sister-in-law brought a bundle of dried
+chamomile for the same purpose. Some one had told her it was the
+"handiest thing in the world to take along with you on them steamboats."
+Cecy sent a wonderful old-gold and scarlet contrivance to hang on the
+wall of the stateroom. There were pockets for watches, and pockets for
+medicines, and pockets for handkerchief and hairpins,--in short, there
+were pockets for everything; besides a pincushion with "Bon Voyage" in
+rows of shining pins, a bottle of eau-de-cologne, a cake of soap, and a
+hammer and tacks to nail the whole up with. Mrs. Hall's gift was a warm
+and very pretty woollen wrapper of dark blue flannel, with a pair of
+soft knitted slippers to match. Old Mr. Worrett sent a note of advice,
+recommending Katy to take a quinine pill every day that she was away,
+never to stay out late, because the dews "over there" were said to be
+unwholesome, and on no account to drink a drop of water which had not
+been boiled.
+
+From Cousin Helen came a delightful travelling-bag, light and strong at
+once, and fitted up with all manner of nice little conveniences. Miss
+Inches sent a "History of Europe" in five fat volumes, which was so
+heavy that it had to be left at home. In fact, a good many of Katy's
+presents had to be left at home, including a bronze paper-weight in the
+shape of a griffin, a large pair of brass screw candlesticks, and an
+ormolu inkstand with a pen-rest attached, which weighed at least a pound
+and a half. These Katy laid aside to enjoy after her return. Mrs. Ashe
+and Cousin Helen had both warned her of the inconvenient consequences of
+weight in baggage; and by their advice she had limited herself to a
+single trunk of moderate size, besides a little flat valise for use in
+her stateroom.
+
+Clover's gift was a set of blank books for notes, journals, etc. In one
+of these, Katy made out a list of "Things I must see," "Things I must
+do," "Things I would like to see," "Things I would like to do." Another
+she devoted to various good shopping addresses which had been given her;
+for though she did not expect to do any shopping herself, she thought
+Mrs. Ashe might find them useful. Katy's ideas were still so simple and
+unworldly, and her experience of life so small, that it had not occurred
+to her how very tantalizing it might be to stand in front of shop
+windows full of delightful things and not be able to buy any of them.
+She was accordingly overpowered with surprise, gratitude, and the sense
+of sudden wealth, when about a week before the start her father gave her
+three little thin strips of paper, which he told her were circular
+notes, and worth a hundred dollars apiece. He also gave her five English
+sovereigns.
+
+"Those are for immediate use," he said. "Put the notes away carefully,
+and don't lose them. You had better have them cashed one at a time as
+you require them. Mrs. Ashe will explain how. You will need a gown or so
+before you come back, and you'll want to buy some photographs and so on,
+and there will be fees--"
+
+"But, papa," protested Katy, opening wide her candid eyes, "I didn't
+expect you to give me any money, and I'm afraid you are giving me too
+much. Do you think you can afford it? Really and truly, I don't want to
+buy things. I shall see everything, you know, and that's enough."
+
+Her father only laughed.
+
+"You'll be wiser and greedier before the year is out, my dear," he
+replied. "Three hundred dollars won't go far, as you'll find. But it's
+all I can spare, and I trust you to keep within it, and not come home
+with any long bills for me to pay."
+
+"Papa! I should think not!" cried Katy, with unsophisticated horror.
+
+One very interesting thing was to happen before they sailed, the thought
+of which helped both Katy and Clover through the last hard days, when
+the preparations were nearly complete, and the family had leisure to
+feel dull and out of spirits. Katy was to make Rose Red a visit.
+
+Rose had by no means been idle during the three years and a half which
+had elapsed since they all parted at Hillsover, and during which the
+girls had not seen her. In fact, she had made more out of the time than
+any of the rest of them, for she had been engaged for eighteen months,
+had been married, and was now keeping house near Boston with a little
+Rose of her own, who, she wrote to Clover, was a perfect angel, and more
+delicious than words could say! Mrs. Ashe had taken passage in the
+"Spartacus," sailing from Boston; and it was arranged that Katy should
+spend the last two days before sailing, with Rose, while Mrs. Ashe and
+Amy visited an old aunt in Hingham. To see Rose in her own home, and
+Rose's husband, and Rose's baby, was only next in interest to seeing
+Europe. None of the changes in her lot seemed to have changed her
+particularly, to judge by the letter she sent in reply to Katy's
+announcing her plans, which letter ran as follows:--
+
+"LONGWOOD, September 20.
+
+"My dearest child,--Your note made me dance with delight. I stood on my
+head waving my heels wildly to the breeze till Deniston thought I must
+be taken suddenly mad; but when I explained he did the same. It is too
+enchanting, the whole of it. I put it at the head of all the nice things
+that ever happened, except my baby. Write the moment you get this by
+what train you expect to reach Boston, and when you roll into the
+station you will behold two forms, one tall and stalwart, the other
+short and fatsome, waiting for you. They will be those of Deniston and
+myself. Deniston is not beautiful, but he is good, and he is prepared to
+_adore_ you. The baby is both good and beautiful, and you will adore
+her. I am neither; but you know all about me, and I always did adore you
+and always shall. I am going out this moment to the butcher's to order a
+calf fatted for your special behoof; and he shall be slain and made into
+cutlets the moment I hear from you. My funny little house, which is
+quite a dear little house too, assumes a new interest in my eyes from
+the fact that you so soon are to see it. It is somewhat queer, as you
+might know my house would be; but I think you will like it.
+
+"I saw Silvery Mary the other day and told her you were coming. She is
+the same mouse as ever. I shall ask her and some of the other girls to
+come out to lunch on one of your days. Good-by, with a hundred and fifty
+kisses to Clovy and the rest.
+
+"Your loving
+
+"ROSE RED."
+
+"She never signs herself Browne, I observe," said Clover, as she
+finished the letter.
+
+"Oh, Rose Red Browne would sound too funny. Rose Red she must stay till
+the end of the chapter; no other name could suit her half so well, and I
+can't imagine her being called anything else. What fun it will be to see
+her and little Rose!"
+
+"And Deniston Browne," put in Clover.
+
+"Somehow I find it rather hard to take in the fact that there is a
+Deniston Browne," observed Katy.
+
+"It will be easier after you have seen him, perhaps."
+
+The last day came, as last days will. Katy's trunk, most carefully
+and exactly packed by the united efforts of the family, stood in the
+hall, locked and strapped, not to be opened again till the party
+reached London. This fact gave it a certain awful interest in the
+eyes of Phil and Johnnie, and even Elsie gazed upon it with respect.
+The little valise was also ready; and Dorry, the neat-handed, had
+painted a red star on both ends of both it and the trunk, that they
+might be easily picked from among a heap of luggage. He now proceeded
+to prepare and paste on two square cards, labelled respectively,
+"Hold" and "State-room." Mrs. Hall had told them that this was the
+correct thing to do.
+
+Mrs. Ashe had been full of business likewise in putting her house to
+rights for a family who had rented it for the time of her absence, and
+Katy and Clover had taken a good many hours from their own preparations
+to help her. All was done at last; and one bright morning in October,
+Katy stood on the wharf with her family about her, and a lump in her
+throat which made it difficult to speak to any of them. She stood so
+very still and said so very little, that a bystander not acquainted with
+the circumstances might have dubbed her "unfeeling;" while the fact was
+that she was feeling too much!
+
+The first bell rang. Katy kissed everybody quietly and went on board
+with her father. Her parting from him, hardest of all, took place in the
+midst of a crowd of people; then he had to leave her, and as the wheels
+began to revolve she went out on the side deck to have a last glimpse of
+the home faces. There they were: Elsie crying tumultuously, with her
+head on papa's coat-sleeve; John laughing, or trying to laugh, with big
+tears running down her cheeks the while; and brave little Clover waving
+her handkerchief encouragingly, but with a very sober look on her face.
+Katy's heart went out to the little group with a sudden passion of
+regret and yearning. Why had she said she would go? What was all Europe
+in comparison with what she was leaving? Life was so short, how could
+she take a whole year out of it to spend away from the people she loved
+best? If it had been left to her to choose, I think she would have flown
+back to the shore then and there, and given up the journey, I also think
+she would have been heartily sorry a little later, had she done so.
+
+But it was not left for her to choose. Already the throb of the engines
+was growing more regular and the distance widening between the great
+boat and the wharf. Gradually the dear faces faded into distance; and
+after watching till the flutter of Clover's handkerchief became an
+undistinguishable speck, Katy went to the cabin with a heavy heart. But
+there were Mrs. Ashe and Amy, inclined to be homesick also, and in need
+of cheering; and Katy, as she tried to brighten them, gradually grew
+bright herself, and recovered her hopeful spirits. Burnet pulled less
+strongly as it got farther away, and Europe beckoned more brilliantly
+now that they were fairly embarked on their journey. The sun shone, the
+lake was a beautiful, dazzling blue, and Katy said to herself, "After
+all, a year is not very long, and how happy I am going to be!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ROSE AND ROSEBUD.
+
+
+Thirty-six hours later the Albany train, running smoothly across the
+green levels beyond the Mill Dam, brought the travellers to Boston.
+
+Katy looked eagerly from the window for her first glimpse of the city of
+which she had heard so much. "Dear little Boston! How nice it is to see
+it again!" she heard a lady behind her say; but why it should be called
+"little Boston" she could not imagine. Seen from the train, it looked
+large, imposing, and very picturesque, after flat Burnet with its one
+bank down to the edge of the lake. She studied the towers, steeples, and
+red roofs crowding each other up the slopes of the Tri-Mountain, and the
+big State House dome crowning all, and made up her mind that she liked
+the looks of it better than any other city she had ever seen.
+
+The train slackened its speed, ran for a few moments between rows of
+tall, shabby brick walls, and with a long, final screech of its whistle
+came to halt in the station-house. Every one made a simultaneous rush
+for the door; and Katy and Mrs. Ashe, waiting to collect their books and
+bags, found themselves wedged into their seats and unable to get out. It
+was a confusing moment, and not comfortable; such moments never are.
+
+But the discomfort brightened into a sense of relief as, looking out of
+the window, Katy caught sight of a face exactly opposite, which had
+evidently caught sight of her,--a fresh, pretty face, with light, waving
+hair, pink cheeks all a-dimple, and eyes which shone with laughter and
+welcome. It was Rose herself, not a bit changed during the years since
+they parted. A tall young man stood beside her, who must, of course, be
+her husband, Deniston Browne.
+
+"There is Rose Red," cried Katy to Mrs. Ashe. "Oh, doesn't she look dear
+and natural? Do wait and let me introduce you. I want you to know her."
+
+But the train had come in a little behind time, and Mrs. Ashe was
+afraid of missing the Hingham boat; so she only took a hasty peep
+from the window at Rose, pronounced her to be charming-looking,
+kissed Katy hurriedly, reminded her that they must be on the steamer
+punctually at twelve o'clock the following Saturday, and was gone,
+with Amy beside her; so that Katy, following last of all the
+slow-moving line of passengers, stepped all alone down from the
+platform into the arms of Rose Red.
+
+"You darling!" was Rose's first greeting. "I began to think you meant
+to spend the night in the car, you were so long in getting out. Well,
+how perfectly lovely this is! Deniston, here is Katy; Katy, this is
+my husband."
+
+Rose looked about fifteen as she spoke, and so absurdly young to have a
+"husband," that Katy could not help laughing as she shook hands with
+"Deniston;" and his own eyes twinkled with fun and evident recognition
+of the same joke. He was a tall young man, with a pleasant, "steady"
+face, and seemed to be infinitely amused, in a quiet way, with
+everything which his wife said and did.
+
+"Let us make haste and get out of this hole," went on Rose. "I can
+scarcely see for the smoke. Deniston, dear, please find the cab, and
+have Katy's luggage put on it. I am wild to get her home, and exhibit
+baby before she chews up her new sash or does something else that is
+dreadful, to spoil her looks. I left her sitting in state, Katy, with
+all her best clothes on, waiting to be made known to you."
+
+"My large trunk is to go straight to the steamer," explained Katy, as
+she gave her checks to Mr. Browne. "I only want the little one taken out
+to Longwood, please."
+
+"Now, this is cosey," remarked Rose, when they were seated in the cab
+with Katy's bag at their feet. "Deniston, my love, I wish you were going
+out with us. There's a nice little bench here all ready and vacant,
+which is just suited to a man of your inches. You won't? Well, come in
+the early train, then. Don't forget.--Now, isn't he just as nice as I
+told you he was?" she demanded, the moment the cab began to move.
+
+"He looks very nice indeed, as far as I can judge in three minutes and
+a quarter."
+
+"My dear, it ought not to take anybody of ordinary discernment a minute
+and a quarter to perceive that he is simply the dearest fellow that ever
+lived," said Rose. "I discovered it three seconds after I first beheld
+him, and was desperately in love with him before he had fairly finished
+his first bow after introduction."
+
+"And was he equally prompt?" asked Katy.
+
+"He says so," replied Rose, with a pretty blush. "But then, you know, he
+could hardly say less after such a frank confession on my part. It is no
+more than decent of him to make believe, even if it is not true. Now,
+Katy, look at Boston, and see if you don't _love_ it!"
+
+The cab had now turned into Boylston Street; and on the right hand lay
+the Common, green as summer after the autumn rains, with the elm arches
+leafy still. Long, slant beams of afternoon sun were filtering through
+the boughs and falling across the turf and the paths, where people were
+walking and sitting, and children and babies playing together. It was a
+delightful scene; and Katy received an impression of space and cheer and
+air and freshness, which ever after was associated with her recollection
+of Boston.
+
+Rose was quite satisfied with her raptures as they drove through Charles
+Street, between the Common and the Public Garden, all ablaze with autumn
+flowers, and down the length of Beacon Street with the blue bay shining
+between the handsome houses on the water side. Every vestibule and
+bay-window was gay with potted plants and flower-boxes; and a concourse
+of happy-looking people, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages, was
+surging to and fro like an equal, prosperous tide, while the sunlight
+glorified all.
+
+"'Boston shows a soft Venetian side,'" quoted Katy, after a while. "I
+know now what Mr. Lowell meant when he wrote that. I don't believe there
+is a more beautiful place in the world."
+
+"Why, of course there isn't," retorted Rose, who was a most devoted
+little Bostonian, in spite of the fact that she had lived in Washington
+nearly all her life. "I've not seen much beside, to be sure, but that is
+no matter; I know it is true. It is the dream of my life to come into
+the city to live. I don't care what part I live in,--West End, South
+End, North End; it's all one to me, so long as it is Boston!"
+
+"But don't you like Longwood?" asked Katy, looking out admiringly at the
+pretty places set amid vines and shrubberies, which they were now
+passing. "It looks so very pretty and pleasant."
+
+"Yes, it's well enough for any one who has a taste for natural
+beauties," replied Rose. "I haven't; I never had. There is nothing I
+hate so much as Nature! I'm a born cockney. I'd rather live in one room
+over Jordan and Marsh's, and see the world wag past, than be the owner
+of the most romantic villa that ever was built, I don't care where it
+may be situated."
+
+The cab now turned in at a gate and followed a curving drive bordered
+with trees to a pretty stone house with a porch embowered with Virginia
+creepers, before which it stopped.
+
+"Here we are!" cried Rose, springing out. "Now, Katy, you mustn't even
+take time to sit down before I show you the dearest baby that ever was
+sent to this sinful earth. Here, let me take your bag; come straight
+upstairs, and I will exhibit her to you."
+
+They ran up accordingly, and Rose took Katy into a large sunny nursery,
+where, tied with pink ribbon into a little basket-chair and watched over
+by a pretty young nurse, sat a dear, fat, fair baby, so exactly like
+Rose in miniature that no one could possibly have mistaken the
+relationship. The baby began to laugh and coo as soon as it caught sight
+of its gay little mother, and exhibited just such another dimple as
+hers, in the middle of a pink cheek. Katy was enchanted.
+
+"Oh, you darling!" she said. "Would she come to me, do you think, Rose?"
+
+"Why, of course she shall," replied Rose, picking up the baby as if she
+had been a pillow, and stuffing her into Katy's arms head first. "Now,
+just look at her, and tell me if ever you saw anything so enchanting in
+the whole course of your life before? Isn't she big? Isn't she
+beautiful? Isn't she good? Just see her little hands and her hair! She
+never cries except when it is clearly her duty to cry. See her turn her
+head to look at me! Oh, you angel!" And seizing the long-suffering baby,
+she smothered it with kisses. "I never, never, never did see anything so
+sweet. Smell her, Katy! Doesn't she smell like heaven?"
+
+Little Rose was indeed a delicious baby, all dimples and good-humor and
+violet-powder, with a skin as soft as a lily's leaf, and a happy
+capacity for allowing herself to be petted and cuddled without
+remonstrance. Katy wanted to hold her all the time; but this Rose would
+by no means permit; in fact, I may as well say at once that the two
+girls spent a great part of their time during the visit in fighting for
+the possession of the baby, who looked on at the struggle, and smiled on
+the victor, whichever it happened to be, with all the philosophic
+composure of Helen of Troy. She was so soft and sunny and equable, that
+it was no more trouble to care for and amuse her than if she had been a
+bird or a kitten; and, as Rose remarked, it was "ten times better fun."
+
+"I was never allowed as much doll as I wanted in my infancy," she said.
+"I suppose I tore them to pieces too soon; and they couldn't give me tin
+ones to play with, as they did wash-bowls when I broke the china ones."
+
+"Were you such a very bad child?" asked Katy.
+
+"Oh, utterly depraved, I believe. You wouldn't think so now, would you?
+I recollect some dreadful occasions at school. Once I had my head pinned
+up in my apron because I _would_ make faces at the other scholars, and
+they laughed; but I promptly bit a bay-window through the apron, and ran
+my tongue out of it till they laughed worse than ever. The teacher used
+to send me home with notes fastened to my pinafore with things like this
+written in them: 'Little Frisk has been more troublesome than usual
+to-day. She has pinched all the younger children, and bent the bonnets
+of all the older ones. We hope to see an amendment soon, or we do not
+know what we shall do.'"
+
+"Why did they call you Little Frisk?" inquired Katy, after she had
+recovered from the laugh which Rose's reminiscences called forth.
+
+"It was a term of endearment, I suppose; but somehow my family never
+seemed to enjoy it as they ought. I cannot understand," she went on
+reflectively, "why I had not sense enough to suppress those awful
+little notes. It would have been so easy to lose them on the way home,
+but somehow it never occurred to me. Little Rose will be wiser than
+that; won't you, my angel? She will tear up the horrid notes--mammy
+will show her how!"
+
+All the time that Katy was washing her face and brushing the dust of the
+railway from her dress, Rose sat by with the little Rose in her lap,
+entertaining her thus. When she was ready, the droll little mamma tucked
+her baby under her arm and led the way downstairs to a large square
+parlor with a bay-window, through which the westering sun was shining.
+It was a pretty room, and had a flavor about it "just like Rose," Katy
+declared. No one else would have hung the pictures or looped back the
+curtains in exactly that way, or have hit upon the happy device of
+filling the grate with a great bunch of marigolds, pale brown, golden,
+and orange, to simulate the fire, which would have been quite too warm
+on so mild an evening. Morris papers and chintzes and "artistic" shades
+of color were in their infancy at that date; but Rose's taste was in
+advance of her time, and with a foreshadowing of the coming "reaction,"
+she had chosen a "greenery, yallery" paper for her walls, against which
+hung various articles which looked a great deal queerer then than they
+would to-day. There was a mandolin, picked up at some Eastern sale, a
+warming-pan in shining brass from her mother's attic, two old samplers
+worked in faded silks, and a quantity of gayly tinted Japanese fans and
+embroideries. She had also begged from an old aunt at Beverly Farms a
+couple of droll little armchairs in white painted wood, with covers of
+antique needle-work. One had "Chit" embroidered on the middle of its
+cushion; the other, "Chat." These stood suggestively at the corners of
+the hearth.
+
+"Now, Katy," said Rose, seating herself in "Chit," "pull up 'Chat' and
+let us begin."
+
+So they did begin, and went on, interrupted only by Baby Rose's coos and
+splutters, till the dusk fell, till appetizing smells floated through
+from the rear of the house, and the click of a latch-key announced Mr.
+Browne, come home just in time for dinner.
+
+The two days' visit went only too quickly. There is nothing more
+fascinating to a girl than the menage of a young couple of her own age.
+It is a sort of playing at real life without the cares and the sense of
+responsibility that real life is sure to bring. Rose was an adventurous
+housekeeper. She was still new to the position, she found it very
+entertaining, and she delighted in experiments of all sorts. If they
+turned out well, it was good fun; if not, that was funnier still! Her
+husband, for all his serious manner, had a real boy's love of a lark,
+and he aided and abetted her in all sorts of whimsical devices. They
+owned a dog who was only less dear than the baby, a cat only less dear
+than the dog, a parrot whose education required constant supervision,
+and a hutch of ring-doves whose melancholy little "whuddering" coos were
+the delight of Rose the less. The house seemed astir with young life all
+over. The only elderly thing in it was the cook, who had the reputation
+of a dreadful temper; only, unfortunately, Rose made her laugh so much
+that she never found time to be cross.
+
+Katy felt quite an old, experienced person amid all this movement and
+liveliness and cheer. It seemed to her that nobody in the world could
+possibly be having such a good time as Rose; but Rose did not take the
+same view of the situation.
+
+"It's all very well now," she said, "while the warm weather lasts; but
+in winter Longwood is simply grewsome. The wind never stops blowing day
+nor night. It howls and it roars and it screams, till I feel as if every
+nerve in my body were on the point of snapping in two. And the snow,
+ugh! And the wind, ugh! And burglars! Every night of our lives they
+come,--or I think they come,--and I lie awake and hear them sharpening
+their tools and forcing the locks and murdering the cook and kidnapping
+Baby, till I long to die, and have done with them forever! Oh, Nature is
+the most unpleasant thing!"
+
+"Burglars are not Nature," objected Katy.
+
+"What are they, then? Art? High Art? Well, whatever they are, I do not
+like them. Oh, if ever the happy day comes when Deniston consents to
+move into town, I never wish to set my eyes on the country again as long
+as I live, unless--well, yes, I should like to come out just once more
+in the horse-cars and _kick_ that elm-tree by the fence! The number of
+times that I have lain awake at night listening to its creaking!"
+
+"You might kick it without waiting to have a house in town."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't dare as long as we are living here! You never know what
+Nature may do. She has ways of her own of getting even with people,"
+remarked her friend, solemnly.
+
+No time must be lost in showing Boston to Katy, Rose said. So the
+morning after her arrival she was taken in bright and early to see the
+sights. There were not quite so many sights to be seen then as there are
+today. The Art Museum had not got much above its foundations; the new
+Trinity Church was still in the future; but the big organ and the bronze
+statue of Beethoven were in their glory, and every day at high noon a
+small straggling audience wandered into Music Hall to hear the
+instrument played. To this extempore concert Katy was taken, and to
+Faneuil Hall and the Athenaeum, to Doll and Richards's, where was an
+exhibition of pictures, to the Granary Graveyard, and the Old South.
+Then the girls did a little shopping; and by that time they were quite
+tired enough to make the idea of luncheon agreeable, so they took the
+path across the Common to the Joy Street Mall.
+
+Katy was charmed by all she had seen. The delightful nearness of so many
+interesting things surprised her. She perceived what is one of Boston's
+chief charms,--that the Common and its surrounding streets make a
+natural centre and rallying-point for the whole city; as the heart is
+the centre of the body and keeps up a quick correspondence and regulates
+the life of all its extremities. The stately old houses on Beacon
+Street, with their rounded fronts, deep window-casements, and here and
+there a mauve or a lilac pane set in the sashes, took her fancy greatly;
+and so did the State House, whose situation made it sufficiently
+imposing, even before the gilding of the dome.
+
+Up the steep steps of the Joy Street Mall they went, to the house on Mt.
+Vernon Street which the Reddings had taken on their return from
+Washington nearly three years before. Rose had previously shown Katy the
+site of the old family house on Summer Street, where she was born, now
+given over wholly to warehouses and shops. Their present residence was
+one of those wide old-fashioned brick houses on the crest of the hill,
+whose upper windows command the view across to the Boston Highlands; in
+the rear was a spacious yard, almost large enough to be called a garden,
+walled in with ivies and grapevines, under which were long beds full of
+roses and chrysanthemums and marigolds and mignonette.
+
+Rose carried a latch-key in her pocket, which she said had been one of
+her wedding-gifts; with this she unlocked the front door and let Katy
+into a roomy white-painted hall.
+
+"We will go straight through to the back steps," she said. "Mamma is
+sure to be sitting there; she always sits there till the first frost;
+she says it makes her think of the country. How different people are! I
+don't want to think of the country, but I'm never allowed to forget it
+for a moment. Mamma is so fond of those steps and the garden."
+
+There, to be sure, Mrs. Redding was found sitting in a wicker-work
+chair under the shade of the grapevines, with a big basket of mending
+at her side. It looked so homely and country-like to find a person
+thus occupied in the middle of a busy city, that Katy's heart warmed
+to her at once.
+
+Mrs. Redding was a fair little woman, scarcely taller than Rose and very
+much like her. She gave Katy a kind welcome.
+
+"You do not seem like a stranger," she said, "Rose has told us so much
+about you and your sister. Sylvia will be very disappointed not to see
+you. She went off to make some visits when we broke up in the country,
+and is not to be home for three weeks yet."
+
+Katy was disappointed, too, for she had heard a great deal about Sylvia
+and had wished very much to meet her. She was shown her picture, from
+which she gathered that she did not look in the least like Rose; for
+though equally fair, her fairness was of the tall aquiline type, quite
+different from Rose's dimpled prettiness. In fact, Rose resembled her
+mother, and Sylvia her father; they were only alike in little
+peculiarities of voice and manner, of which a portrait did not enable
+Katy to judge.
+
+The two girls had a cosey little luncheon with Mrs. Redding, after which
+Rose carried Katy off to see the house and everything in it which was in
+any way connected with her own personal history,--the room where she
+used to sleep, the high-chair in which she sat as a baby and which was
+presently to be made over to little Rose, the sofa where Deniston
+offered himself, and the exact spot on the carpet on which she had stood
+while they were being married! Last of all,--
+
+"Now you shall see the best and dearest thing in the whole house,"
+she said, opening the door of a room in the second story.--
+"Grandmamma, here is my friend Katy Carr, whom you have so often
+heard me tell about."
+
+It was a large pleasant room, with a little wood-fire blazing in a
+grate, by which, in an arm-chair full of cushions, with a
+Solitaire-board on a little table beside her, sat a sweet old lady.
+This was Rose's father's mother. She was nearly eighty; but she was
+beautiful still, and her manner had a gracious old-fashioned courtesy
+which was full of charm. She had been thrown from a carriage the year
+before, and had never since been able to come downstairs or to mingle
+in the family life.
+
+"They come to me instead," she told Katy. "There is no lack of pleasant
+company," she added; "every one is very good to me. I have a reader for
+two hours a day, and I read to myself a little, and play Patience and
+Solitaire, and never lack entertainment."
+
+There was something restful in the sight of such a lovely specimen of
+old age. Katy realized, as she looked at her, what a loss it had been
+to her own life that she had never known either of her grandparents.
+She sat and gazed at old Mrs. Redding with a mixture of regret and
+fascination. She longed to hold her hand, and kiss her, and play with
+her beautiful silvery hair, as Rose did. Rose was evidently the old
+lady's peculiar darling. They were on the most intimate terms; and
+Rose dimpled and twinkled, and made saucy speeches, and told all her
+little adventures and the baby's achievements, and made jests, and
+talked nonsense as freely as to a person of her own age. It was a
+delightful relation.
+
+"Grandmamma has taken a fancy to you, I can see," she told Katy, as they
+drove back to Longwood. "She always wants to know my friends; and she
+has her own opinions about them, I can tell you."
+
+"Do you really think she liked me?" said Katy, warmly. "I am so glad
+if she did, for I _loved_ her. I never saw a really beautiful old
+person before."
+
+"Oh, there's nobody like her," rejoined Rose. "I can't imagine what it
+would be not to have her." Her merry little face was quite sad and
+serious as she spoke. "I wish she were not so old," she added with a
+sigh. "If we could only put her back twenty years! Then, perhaps, she
+would live as long as I do."
+
+But, alas! there is no putting back the hands on the dial of time, no
+matter how much we may desire it.
+
+The second day of Katy's visit was devoted to the luncheon-party of
+which Rose had written in her letter, and which was meant to be a
+reunion or "side chapter" of the S.S.U.C. Rose had asked every old
+Hillsover girl who was within reach. There was Mary Silver, of course,
+and Esther Dearborn, both of whom lived in Boston; and by good luck
+Alice Gibbons happened to be making Esther a visit, and Ellen Gray came
+in from Waltham, where her father had recently been settled over a
+parish, so that all together they made six of the original nine of the
+society; and Quaker Row itself never heard a merrier confusion of
+tongues than resounded through Rose's pretty parlor for the first hour
+after the arrival of the guests.
+
+There was everybody to ask after, and everything to tell. The girls all
+seemed wonderfully unchanged to Katy, but they professed to find her
+very grown up and dignified.
+
+"I wonder if I am," she said. "Clover never told me so. But perhaps she
+has grown dignified too."
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Rose; "Clover could no more be dignified than my baby
+could. Mary Silver, give me that child this moment! I never saw such a
+greedy thing as you are; you have kept her to yourself at least a
+quarter of an hour, and it isn't fair."
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with
+her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way.
+
+"We only need Mrs. Nipson to make our little party complete," went on
+Rose, "or dear Miss Jane! What has become of Miss Jane, by the way? Do
+any of you know?"
+
+"Oh, she is still teaching at Hillsover and waiting for her missionary.
+He has never come back. Berry Searles says that when he goes out to walk
+he always walks away from the United States, for fear of diminishing the
+distance between them."
+
+"What a shame!" said Katy, though she could not help laughing. "Miss
+Jane was really quite nice,--no, not nice exactly, but she had good
+things about her."
+
+"Had she!" remarked Rose, satirically. "I never observed them. It
+required eyes like yours, real 'double million magnifying-glasses of
+h'extra power,' to find them out. She was all teeth and talons as far
+as I was concerned; but I think she really did have a softish spot in
+her old heart for you, Katy, and it's the only good thing I ever knew
+about her."
+
+"What has become of Lilly Page?" asked Ellen.
+
+"She's in Europe with her mother. I dare say you'll meet, Katy, and what
+a pleasure that will be! And have you heard about Bella? she's teaching
+school in the Indian Territory. Just fancy that scrap teaching school!"
+
+"Isn't it dangerous?" asked Mary Silver.
+
+"Dangerous? How? To her scholars, do you mean? Oh, the Indians! Well,
+her scalp will be easy to identify if she has adhered to her favorite
+pomatum; that's one comfort," put in naughty Rose.
+
+It was a merry luncheon indeed, as little Rose seemed to think, for she
+laughed and cooed incessantly. The girls were enchanted with her, and
+voted her by acclamation an honorary member of the S.S.U.C. Her health
+was drunk in Apollinaris water with all the honors, and Rose returned
+thanks in a droll speech. The friends told each other their histories
+for the past three years; but it was curious how little, on the whole,
+most of them had to tell. Though, perhaps, that was because they did not
+tell all; for Alice Gibbons confided to Katy in a whisper that she
+strongly suspected Esther of being engaged, and at the same moment Ellen
+Gray was convulsing Rose by the intelligence that a theological student
+from Andover was "very attentive" to Mary Silver.
+
+"My dear, I don't believe it," Rose said, "not even a theological
+student would dare! and if he did, I am quite sure Mary would consider
+it most improper. You must be mistaken, Ellen."
+
+"No, I'm not mistaken; for the theological student is my second cousin,
+and his sister told me all about it. They are not engaged exactly, but
+she hasn't said no; so he hopes she will say yes."
+
+"Oh, she'll never say no; but then she will never say yes, either. He
+would better take silence as consent! Well, I never did think I should
+live to see Silvery Mary married. I should as soon have expected to find
+the Thirty-nine Articles engaged in a flirtation. She's a dear old
+thing, though, and as good as gold; and I shall consider your second
+cousin a lucky man if he persuades her."
+
+"I wonder where we shall all be when you come back, Katy," said Esther
+Dearborn as they parted at the gate. "A year is a long time; all sorts
+of things may happen in a year."
+
+These words rang in Katy's ears as she fell asleep that night. "All
+sorts of things may happen in a year," she thought, "and they may not be
+all happy things, either." Almost she wished that the journey to Europe
+had never been thought of!
+
+But when she waked the next morning to the brightest of October suns
+shining out of a clear blue sky, her misgivings fled. There could not
+have been a more beautiful day for their start.
+
+She and Rose went early into town, for old Mrs. Bedding had made Katy
+promise to come for a few minutes to say good-by. They found her sitting
+by the fire as usual, though her windows were open to admit the
+sun-warmed air. A little basket of grapes stood on the table beside her,
+with a nosegay of tea-roses on top. These were from Rose's mother, for
+Katy to take on board the steamer; and there was something else, a small
+parcel twisted up in thin white paper.
+
+"It is my good-by gift," said the dear old lady. "Don't open it now.
+Keep it till you are well out at sea, and get some little thing with it
+as a keepsake from me."
+
+Grateful and wondering, Katy put the little parcel in her pocket. With
+kisses and good wishes she parted from these new made friends, and she
+and Rose drove to the steamer, stopping for Mr. Browne by the way. They
+were a little late, so there was not much time for farewells after they
+arrived; but Rose snatched a moment for a private interview with the
+stewardess, unnoticed by Katy, who was busy with Mrs. Ashe and Amy.
+
+The bell rang, and the great steam-vessel slowly backed into the stream.
+Then her head was turned to sea, and down the bay she went, leaving Rose
+and her husband still waving their handkerchiefs on the pier. Katy
+watched them to the last, and when she could no longer distinguish them,
+felt that her final link with home was broken.
+
+It was not till she had settled her things in the little cabin which
+was to be her home for the next ten days, had put her bonnet and dress
+for safe keeping in the upper berth, nailed up her red and yellow bag,
+and donned the woollen gown, ulster, and soft felt hat which were to do
+service during the voyage, that she found time to examine the
+mysterious parcel.
+
+Behold, it was a large, beautiful gold-piece, twenty dollars!
+
+"What a darling old lady!" said Katy; and she gave the gold-piece a
+kiss. "How did she come to think of such a thing? I wonder if there is
+anything in Europe good enough to buy with it?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ON THE "SPARTACUS."
+
+
+The ulster and the felt hat soon came off again, for a head wind lay
+waiting in the offing, and the "Spartacus" began to pitch and toss in a
+manner which made all her unseasoned passengers glad to betake
+themselves to their berths. Mrs. Ashe and Amy were among the earliest
+victims of sea-sickness; and Katy, after helping them to settle in their
+staterooms, found herself too dizzy and ill to sit up a moment longer,
+and thankfully resorted to her own.
+
+As the night came on, the wind grew stronger and the motion worse. The
+"Spartacus" had the reputation of being a dreadful "roller," and seemed
+bound to justify it on this particular voyage. Down, down, down the
+great hull would slide till Katy would hold her breath with fear lest it
+might never right itself again; then slowly, slowly the turn would be
+made, and up, up, up it would go, till the cant on the other side was
+equally alarming. On the whole, Katy preferred to have her own side of
+the ship, the downward one; for it was less difficult to keep herself in
+the berth, from which she was in continual danger of being thrown. The
+night seemed endless, for she was too frightened to sleep except in
+broken snatches; and when day dawned, and she looked through the little
+round pane of glass in the port-hole, only gray sky and gray weltering
+waves and flying spray and rain met her view.
+
+"Oh, dear, why do people ever go to sea, unless they must?" she thought
+feebly to herself. She wanted to get up and see how Mrs. Ashe had lived
+through the night, but the attempt to move made her so miserably ill
+that she was glad to sink again on her pillows.
+
+The stewardess looked in with offers of tea and toast, the very idea
+of which was simply dreadful, and pronounced the other lady "'orridly
+ill, worse than you are, Miss," and the little girl "takin' on
+dreadful in the h'upper berth." Of this fact Katy soon had audible
+proof; for as her dizzy senses rallied a little, she could hear Amy in
+the opposite stateroom crying and sobbing pitifully. She seemed to be
+angry as well as sick, for she was scolding her poor mother in the
+most vehement fashion.
+
+"I hate being at sea," Katy heard her say. "I won't stay in this nasty
+old ship. Mamma! Mamma! do you hear me? I won't stay in this ship! It
+wasn't a bit kind of you to bring me to such a horrid place. It was very
+unkind; it was cru-el. I want to go back, mamma. Tell the captain to
+take me back to the land. Mamma, why don't you speak to me? Oh, I am so
+sick and so very un-happy. Don't you wish you were dead? I do!"
+
+And then came another storm of sobs, but never a sound from Mrs. Ashe,
+who, Katy suspected, was too ill to speak. She felt very sorry for poor
+little Amy, raging there in her high berth like some imprisoned
+creature, but she was powerless to help her. She could only resign
+herself to her own discomforts, and try to believe that somehow,
+sometime, this state of things must mend,--either they should all get to
+land or all go to the bottom and be drowned, and at that moment she
+didn't care very much which it turned out to be.
+
+The gale increased as the day wore on, and the vessel pitched
+dreadfully. Twice Katy was thrown out of her berth on the floor; then
+the stewardess came and fixed a sort of movable side to the berth, which
+held her in, but made her feel like a child fastened into a railed crib.
+At intervals she could still hear Amy crying and scolding her mother,
+and conjectured that they were having a dreadful time of it in the other
+stateroom. It was all like a bad dream. "And they call this travelling
+for pleasure!" thought poor Katy.
+
+One droll thing happened in the course of the second night,--at least it
+seemed droll afterward; at the time Katy was too uncomfortable to enjoy
+it. Amid the rush of the wind, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and
+the shrill buzz of the screw, she heard a sound of queer little
+footsteps in the entry outside of her open door, hopping and leaping
+together in an odd irregular way, like a regiment of mice or toy
+soldiers. Nearer and nearer they came; and Katy opening her eyes saw a
+procession of boots and shoes of all sizes and shapes, which had
+evidently been left on the floors or at the doors of various staterooms,
+and which in obedience to the lurchings of the vessel had collected in
+the cabin. They now seemed to be acting in concert with one another, and
+really looked alive as they bumped and trotted side by side, and two by
+two, in at the door and up close to her bedside. There they remained for
+several moments executing what looked like a dance; then the leading
+shoe turned on its heel as if giving a signal to the others, and they
+all hopped slowly again into the passage-way and disappeared. It was
+exactly like one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales, Katy wrote to
+Clover afterward. She heard them going down the cabin; but how it ended,
+or whether the owners of the boots and shoes ever got their own
+particular pairs again, she never knew.
+
+Toward morning the gale abated, the sea became smoother, and she dropped
+asleep. When she woke the sun was struggling through the clouds, and she
+felt better.
+
+The stewardess opened the port-hole to freshen the air, and helped her
+to wash her face and smooth her tangled hair; then she produced a little
+basin of gruel and a triangular bit of toast, and Katy found that her
+appetite was come again and she could eat.
+
+"And 'ere's a letter, ma'am, which has come for you by post this
+morning," said the nice old stewardess, producing an envelope from her
+pocket, and eying her patient with great satisfaction.
+
+"By post!" cried Katy, in amazement; "why, how can that be?" Then
+catching sight of Rose's handwriting on the envelope, she understood,
+and smiled at her own simplicity.
+
+The stewardess beamed at her as she opened it, then saying again, "Yes,
+'m, by post, m'm," withdrew, and left Katy to enjoy the little surprise.
+
+The letter was not long, but it was very like its writer. Rose drew a
+picture of what Katy would probably be doing at the time it reached
+her,--a picture so near the truth that Katy felt as if Rose must have
+the spirit of prophecy, especially as she kindly illustrated the
+situation with a series of pen-and-ink drawings, in which Katy was
+depicted as prone in her berth, refusing with horror to go to dinner,
+looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the United States
+was supposed to be, and fishing out of her port-hole with a crooked pin
+in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her
+family to come out at once and take her home. It ended with this short
+"poem," over which Katy laughed till Mrs. Ashe called feebly across the
+entry to ask what _was_ the matter?
+
+  "Break, break, break
+    And mis-behave, O sea,
+  And I wish that my tongue could utter
+    The hatred I feel for thee!
+
+  "Oh, well for the fisherman's child
+    On the sandy beach at his play;
+  Oh, well for all sensible folk
+    Who are safe at home to-day!
+
+  "But this horrible ship keeps on,
+    And is never a moment still,
+  And I yearn for the touch of the nice dry land,
+    Where I needn't feel so ill!
+
+  "Break! break! break!
+    There is no good left in me;
+  For the dinner I ate on the shore so late
+    Has vanished into the sea!"
+
+Laughter is very restorative after the forlornity of sea-sickness; and
+Katy was so stimulated by her letter that she managed to struggle into
+her dressing-gown and slippers and across the entry to Mrs. Ashe's
+stateroom. Amy had fallen asleep at last and must not be waked up, so
+their interview was conducted in whispers. Mrs. Ashe had by no means got
+to the tea-and-toast stage yet, and was feeling miserable enough.
+
+"I have had the most dreadful time with Amy," she said. "All day
+yesterday, when she wasn't sick she was raging at me from the upper
+berth, and I too ill to say a word in reply. I never knew her so
+naughty! And it seemed very neglectful not to come to see after you,
+poor dear child! but really I couldn't raise my head."
+
+"Neither could I, and I felt just as guilty not to be taking care of
+you," said Katy. "Well, the worst is over with all of us, I hope. The
+vessel doesn't pitch half so much now, and the stewardess says we shall
+feel a great deal better as soon as we get on deck. She is coming
+presently to help me up; and when Amy wakes, won't you let her be
+dressed, and I will take care of her while Mrs. Barrett attends to you."
+
+"I don't think I can be dressed," sighed poor Mrs. Ashe. "I feel as if I
+should just lie here till we get to Liverpool."
+
+"Oh no, h'indeed, mum,--no, you won't," put in Mrs. Barrett, who at that
+moment appeared, gruel-cup in hand. "I don't never let my ladies lie in
+their berths a moment longer than there is need of. I h'always gets them
+on deck as soon as possible to get the h'air. It's the best medicine you
+can 'ave, ma'am, the fresh h'air; h'indeed it h'is."
+
+Stewardesses are all-powerful on board ship, and Mrs. Barrett was so
+persuasive as well as positive that it was not possible to resist her.
+She got Katy into her dress and wraps, and seated her on deck in a chair
+with a great rug wrapped about her feet, with very little effort on
+Katy's part. Then she dived down the companion-way again, and in the
+course of an hour appeared escorting a big burly steward, who carried
+poor little pale Amy in his arms as easily as though she had been a
+kitten. Amy gave a scream of joy at the sight of Katy, and cuddled down
+in her lap under the warm rug with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.
+
+"I thought I was never going to see you again," she said, with a little
+squeeze. "Oh, Miss Katy, it has been so horrid! I never thought that
+going to Europe meant such dreadful things as this!"
+
+"This is only the beginning; we shall get across the sea in a few days,
+and then we shall find out what going to Europe really means. But what
+made you behave so, Amy, and cry and scold poor mamma when she was sick?
+I could hear you all the way across the entry."
+
+"Could you? Then why didn't you come to me?"
+
+"I wanted to; but I was sick too, so sick that I couldn't move. But why
+were you so naughty?--you didn't tell me."
+
+"I didn't mean to be naughty, but I couldn't help crying. You would have
+cried too, and so would Johnnie, if you had been cooped up in a dreadful
+old berth at the top of the wall that you couldn't get out of, and
+hadn't had anything to eat, and nobody to bring you any water when you
+wanted some. And mamma wouldn't answer when I called to her."
+
+"She couldn't answer; she was too ill," explained Katy. "Well, my pet,
+it _was_ pretty hard for you. I hope we sha'n't have any more such days.
+The sea is a great deal smoother now."
+
+"Mabel looks quite pale; she was sick, too," said Amy, regarding the
+doll in her arms with an anxious air. "I hope the fresh h'air will do
+her good."
+
+"Is she going to have any fresh hair?" asked Katy, wilfully
+misunderstanding.
+
+"That was what that woman called it,--the fat one who made me come up
+here. But I'm glad she did, for I feel heaps better already; only I keep
+thinking of poor little Maria Matilda shut up in the trunk in that dark
+place, and wondering if she's sick. There's nobody to explain to her
+down there."
+
+"They say that you don't feel the motion half so much in the bottom of
+the ship," said Katy. "Perhaps she hasn't noticed it at all. Dear me,
+how good something smells! I wish they would bring us something to eat."
+
+A good many passengers had come up by this time; and Robert, the deck
+steward, was going about, tray in hand, taking orders for lunch. Amy and
+Katy both felt suddenly ravenous; and when Mrs. Ashe awhile later was
+helped up the stairs, she was amazed to find them eating cold beef and
+roasted potatoes, with the finest appetites in the world. "They had
+served out their apprenticeships," the kindly old captain told them,
+"and were made free of the nautical guild from that time on." So it
+proved; for after these two bad days none of the party were sick again
+during the voyage.
+
+Amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef; and
+to appease this craving, Katy started a sort of ocean serial, called
+"The History of Violet and Emma," which she meant to make last till they
+got to Liverpool, but which in reality lasted much longer. It might with
+equal propriety have been called "The Adventures of two little Girls who
+didn't have any Adventures," for nothing in particular happened to
+either Violet or Emma during the whole course of their long-drawn-out
+history. Amy, however, found them perfectly enchanting, and was never
+weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again, how they
+got into scrapes and got out of them, how they made good resolutions and
+broke them, about their Christmas presents and birthday treats, and what
+they said and how they felt. The first instalment of this un-exciting
+romance was given that first afternoon on deck; and after that, Amy
+claimed a new chapter daily, and it was a chief ingredient of her
+pleasure during the voyage.
+
+On the third morning Katy woke and dressed so early, that she gained the
+deck before the sailors had finished their scrubbing and holystoning.
+She took refuge within the companion-way, and sat down on the top step
+of the ladder, to wait till the deck was dry enough to venture upon it.
+There the Captain found her and drew near for a talk.
+
+Captain Bryce was exactly the kind of sea-captain that is found in
+story-books, but not always in real life. He was stout and grizzled and
+brown and kind. He had a bluff weather-beaten face, lit up with a pair
+of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased; and his manner,
+though it was full of the habit of command, was quiet and pleasant. He
+was a Martinet on board his ship. Not a sailor under him would have
+dared dispute his orders for a moment; but he was very popular with
+them, notwithstanding; they liked him as much as they feared him, for
+they knew him to be their best friend if it came to sickness or trouble
+with any of them.
+
+Katy and he grew quite intimate during their long morning talk. The
+Captain liked girls. He had one of his own, about Katy's age, and was
+fond of talking about her. Lucy was his mainstay at home, he told Katy.
+Her mother had been "weakly" now this long time back, and Bess and Nanny
+were but children yet, so Lucy had to take command and keep things
+ship-shape when he was away.
+
+"She'll be on the lookout when the steamer comes in," said the Captain.
+"There's a signal we've arranged which means 'All's well,' and when we
+get up the river a little way I always look to see if it's flying. It's
+a bit of a towel hung from a particular window; and when I see it I say
+to myself, 'Thank God! another voyage safely done and no harm come of
+it.' It's a sad kind of work for a man to go off for a twenty-four days'
+cruise leaving a sick wife on shore behind him. If it wasn't that I have
+Lucy to look after things, I should have thrown up my command long ago."
+
+"Indeed, I am glad you have Lucy; she must he a great comfort to you,"
+said Katy, sympathetically; for the Captain's hearty voice trembled a
+little as he spoke. She made him tell her the color of Lucy's hair and
+eyes, and exactly how tall she was, and what she had studied, and what
+sort of books she liked. She seemed such a very nice girl, and Katy
+thought she should like to know her.
+
+The deck had dried fast in the fresh sea-wind, and the Captain had just
+arranged Katy in her chair, and was wrapping the rug about her feet in a
+fatherly way, when Mrs. Barrett, all smiles, appeared from below.
+
+"Oh, 'ere you h'are, Miss. I couldn't think what 'ad come to you so
+early; and you're looking ever so well again, I'm pleased to see; and
+'ere's a bundle just arrived, Miss, by the Parcels Delivery."
+
+"What!" cried simple Katy. Then she laughed at her own foolishness, and
+took the "bundle," which was directed in Rose's unmistakable hand.
+
+It contained a pretty little green-bound copy of Emerson's Poems, with
+Katy's name and "To be read at sea," written on the flyleaf. Somehow the
+little gift seemed to bridge the long misty distance which stretched
+between the vessel's stern and Boston Bay, and to bring home and friends
+a great deal nearer. With a half-happy, half-tearful pleasure Katy
+recognized the fact that distance counts for little if people love one
+another, and that hearts have a telegraph of their own whose messages
+are as sure and swift as any of those sent over the material lines which
+link continent to continent and shore with shore.
+
+Later in the morning, Katy, going down to her stateroom for something,
+came across a pallid, exhausted-looking lady, who lay stretched on one
+of the long sofas in the cabin, with a baby in her arms and a little
+girl sitting at her feet, quite still, with a pair of small hands folded
+in her lap. The little girl did not seem to be more than four years old.
+She had two pig-tails of thick flaxen hair hanging over her shoulders,
+and at Katy's approach raised a pair of solemn blue eyes, which had so
+much appeal in them, though she said nothing, that Katy stopped at once.
+
+"Can I do anything for you?" she asked. "I am afraid you have been
+very ill."
+
+At the sound of her voice the lady on the sofa opened her eyes. She
+tried to speak, but to Katy's dismay began to cry instead; and when the
+words came they were strangled with sobs.
+
+"You are so kin-d to ask," she said. "If you would give my little girl
+something to eat! She has had nothing since yesterday, and I have been
+so ill; and no-nobody has c-ome near us!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Katy, with horror, "nothing to eat since yesterday! How did
+it happen?"
+
+"Everybody has been sick on our side the ship," explained the poor lady,
+"and I suppose the stewardess thought, as I had a maid with me, that I
+needed her less than the others. But my maid has been sick, too; and oh,
+so selfish! She wouldn't even take the baby into the berth with her; and
+I have had all I could do to manage with him, when I couldn't lift up my
+head. Little Gretchen has had to go without anything; and she has been
+so good and patient!"
+
+Katy lost no time, but ran for Mrs. Barrett, whose indignation knew no
+bounds when she heard how the helpless party had been neglected.
+
+"It's a new person that stewardess h'is, ma'am," she explained, "and
+most h'inefficient! I told the Captain when she come aboard that I
+didn't 'ave much opinion of her, and now he'll see how it h'is. I'm
+h'ashamed that such a thing should 'appen on the 'Spartacus,' ma'am,--I
+h'am, h'indeed. H'it never would 'ave ben so h'under h'Eliza,
+ma'am,--she's the one that went h'off and got herself married the trip
+before last, when this person came to take her place."
+
+All the time that she talked Mrs. Barrett was busy in making Mrs.
+Ware--for that, it seemed, was the sick lady's name--more comfortable;
+and Katy was feeding Gretchen out of a big bowl full of bread and milk
+which one of the stewards had brought. The little uncomplaining thing
+was evidently half starved, but with the mouthfuls the pink began to
+steal back into her cheeks and lips, and the dark circles lessened under
+the blue eyes. By the time the bottom of the bowl was reached she could
+smile, but still she said not a word except a whispered _Danke schon_.
+Her mother explained that she had been born in Germany, and always till
+now had been cared for by a German nurse, so that she knew that language
+better than English.
+
+[Illustration: Katy was feeding Gretchen out of a big bowl full of bread
+and milk.]
+
+Gretchen was a great amusement to Katy and Amy during the rest of the
+voyage. They kept her on deck with them a great deal, and she was
+perfectly content with them and very good, though always solemn and
+quiet. Pleasant people turned up among the passengers, as always happens
+on an ocean steamship, and others not so pleasant, perhaps, who were
+rather curious and interesting to watch.
+
+Katy grew to feel as if she knew a great deal about her fellow
+travellers as time went on. There was the young girl going out to join
+her parents under the care of a severe governess, whom everybody on
+board rather pitied. There was the other girl on her way to study art,
+who was travelling quite alone, and seemed to have nobody to meet her or
+to go to except a fellow student of her own age, already in Paris, but
+who seemed quite unconscious of her lonely position and competent to
+grapple with anything or anybody. There was the queer old gentleman who
+had "crossed" eleven times before, and had advice and experience to
+spare for any one who would listen to them; and the other gentleman, not
+so old but even more queer, who had "frozen his stomach," eight years
+before, by indulging, on a hot summer's day, in sixteen successive
+ice-creams, alternated with ten glasses of equally cold soda-water, and
+who related this exciting experience in turn to everybody on board.
+There was the bad little boy, whose parents were powerless to oppose
+him, and who carried terror to the hearts of all beholders whenever he
+appeared; and the pretty widow who filled the role of reigning belle;
+and the other widow, not quite so pretty or so much a belle, who had a
+good deal to say, in a voice made discreetly low, about what a pity it
+was that dear Mrs. So-and-so should do this or that, and "Doesn't it
+strike you as very unfortunate that she should not consider" the other
+thing? A great sea-going steamer is a little world in itself, and gives
+one a glimpse of all sorts and conditions of people and characters.
+
+On the whole, there was no one on the "Spartacus" whom Katy liked so
+well as sedate little Gretchen except the dear old Captain, with whom
+she was a prime favorite. He gave Mrs. Ashe and herself the seats next
+to him at table, looked after their comfort in every possible way, and
+each night at dinner sent Katy one of the apple-dumplings made specially
+for him by the cook, who had gone many voyages with the Captain and knew
+his fancies. Katy did not care particularly for the dumpling, but she
+valued it as a mark of regard, and always ate it when she could.
+
+Meanwhile, every morning brought a fresh surprise from that dear,
+painstaking Rose, who had evidently worked hard and thought harder in
+contriving pleasures for Katy's first voyage at sea. Mrs. Barrett was
+enlisted in the plot, there could be no doubt of that, and enjoyed the
+joke as much as any one, as she presented herself each day with the
+invariable formula, "A letter for you, ma'am," or "A bundle, Miss, come
+by the Parcels Delivery." On the fourth morning it was a photograph of
+Baby Rose, in a little flat morocco case. The fifth brought a wonderful
+epistle, full of startling pieces of news, none of them true. On the
+sixth appeared a long narrow box containing a fountain pen. Then came
+Mr. Howells's "A Foregone Conclusion," which Katy had never seen; then a
+box of quinine pills; then a sachet for her trunk; then another
+burlesque poem; last of all, a cake of delicious violet soap, "to wash
+the sea-smell from her hands," the label said. It grew to be one of the
+little excitements of ship life to watch for the arrival of these daily
+gifts; and "What did the mail bring for you this time, Miss Carr?" was a
+question frequently asked. Each arrival Katy thought must be the final
+one; but Rose's forethought had gone so far even as to provide an extra
+parcel in case the voyage was a day longer than usual, and "Miss Carr's
+mail" continued to come in till the very last morning.
+
+Katy never forgot the thrill that went through her when, after so many
+days of sea, her eyes first caught sight of the dim line of the Irish
+coast. An exciting and interesting day followed as, after stopping at
+Queenstown to leave the mails, they sped northeastward between shores
+which grew more distinct and beautiful with every hour,--on one side
+Ireland, on the other the bold mountain lines of the Welsh coast. It was
+late afternoon when they entered the Mersey, and dusk had fallen before
+the Captain got out his glass to look for the white fluttering speck in
+his own window which meant so much to him. Long he studied before he
+made quite sure that it was there. At last he shut the glass with a
+satisfied air.
+
+"It's all right," he said to Katy, who stood near, almost as much
+interested as he. "Lucy never forgets, bless her! Well, there's another
+voyage over and done with, thank God, and my Mary is where she was. It's
+a load taken from my mind."
+
+The moon had risen and was shining softly on the river as the
+crowded tender landed the passengers from the "Spartacus" at the
+Liverpool docks.
+
+"We shall meet again in London or in Paris," said one to another, and
+cards and addresses were exchanged. Then after a brief delay at the
+Custom House they separated, each to his own particular destination;
+and, as a general thing, none of them ever saw any of the others again.
+It is often thus with those who have been fellow voyagers at sea; and it
+is always a surprise and perplexity to inexperienced travellers that it
+can be so, and that those who have been so much to each other for ten
+days can melt away into space and disappear as though the brief intimacy
+had never existed.
+
+"Four-wheeler or hansom, ma'am?" said a porter to Mrs. Ashe.
+
+"Which, Katy?"
+
+"Oh, let us have a hansom! I never saw one, and they look so nice
+in 'Punch.'"
+
+So a hansom cab was called, the two ladies got in, Amy cuddled down
+between them, the folding-doors were shut over their knees like a
+lap-robe, and away they drove up the solidly paved streets to the hotel
+where they were to pass the night. It was too late to see or do anything
+but enjoy the sense of being on firm land once more.
+
+"How lovely it will be to sleep in a bed that doesn't tip or roll from
+side to side!" said Mrs. Ashe.
+
+"Yes, and that is wide enough and long enough and soft enough to be
+comfortable!" replied Katy. "I feel as if I could sleep for a fortnight
+to make up for the bad nights at sea."
+
+Everything seemed delightful to her,--the space for undressing, the
+great tub of fresh water which stood beside the English-looking
+washstand with its ample basin and ewer, the chintz-curtained bed, the
+coolness, the silence,--and she closed her eyes with the pleasant
+thought in her mind, "It is really England and we are really here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+STORYBOOK ENGLAND.
+
+
+"Oh, is it raining?" was Katy's first question next morning, when the
+maid came to call her. The pretty room, with its gayly flowered chintz,
+and china, and its brass bedstead, did not look half so bright as when
+lit with gas the night before; and a dim gray light struggled in at the
+window, which in America would certainly have meant bad weather coming
+or already come.
+
+"Oh no, h'indeed, ma'am, it's a very fine day,--not bright, ma'am, but
+very dry," was the answer.
+
+Katy couldn't imagine what the maid meant, when she peeped between the
+curtains and saw a thick dull mist lying over everything, and the
+pavements opposite her window shining with wet. Afterwards, when she
+understood better the peculiarities of the English climate, she too
+learned to call days not absolutely rainy "fine," and to be grateful for
+them; but on that first morning her sensations were of bewildered
+surprise, almost vexation.
+
+Mrs. Ashe and Amy were waiting in the coffee-room when she went in
+search of them.
+
+"What shall we have for breakfast," asked Mrs. Ashe,--"our first meal in
+England? Katy, you order it."
+
+"Let's have all the things we have read about in books and don't have at
+home," said Katy, eagerly. But when she came to look over the bill of
+fare there didn't seem to be many such things. Soles and muffins she
+finally decided upon, and, as an after-thought, gooseberry jam.
+
+"Muffins sound so very good in Dickens, you know," she explained to Mrs.
+Ashe; "and I never saw a sole."
+
+The soles when they came proved to be nice little pan-fish, not unlike
+what in New England are called "scup." All the party took kindly to
+them; but the muffins were a great disappointment, tough and tasteless,
+with a flavor about them as of scorched flannel.
+
+"How queer and disagreeable they are!" said Katy. "I feel as if I were
+eating rounds cut from an old ironing-blanket and buttered! Dear me!
+what did Dickens mean by making such a fuss about them, I wonder? And I
+don't care for gooseberry jam, either; it isn't half as good as the jams
+we have at home. Books are very deceptive."
+
+"I am afraid they are. We must make up our minds to find a great many
+things not quite so nice as they sound when we read about them," replied
+Mrs. Ashe.
+
+Mabel was breakfasting with them, of course, and was heard to remark at
+this juncture that she didn't like muffins, either, and would a great
+deal rather have waffles; whereupon Amy reproved her, and explained that
+nobody in England knew what waffles were, they were such a stupid
+nation, and that Mabel must learn to eat whatever was given her and not
+find fault with it!
+
+After this moral lesson it was found to be dangerously near train-time;
+and they all hurried to the railroad station, which, fortunately, was
+close by. There was rather a scramble and confusion for a few moments;
+for Katy, who had undertaken to buy the tickets, was puzzled by the
+unaccustomed coinage; and Mrs. Ashe, whose part was to see after the
+luggage, found herself perplexed and worried by the absence of checks,
+and by no means disposed to accept the porter's statement, that if she'd
+only bear in mind that the trunks were in the second van from the
+engine, and get out to see that they were safe once or twice during the
+journey, and call for them as soon as they reached London, she'd have no
+trouble,--"please remember the porter, ma'am!" However all was happily
+settled at last; and without any serious inconveniences they found
+themselves established in a first-class carriage, and presently after
+running smoothly at full speed across the rich English midlands toward
+London and the eastern coast.
+
+The extreme greenness of the October landscape was what struck them
+first, and the wonderfully orderly and trim aspect of the country, with
+no ragged, stump-dotted fields or reaches of wild untended woods. Late
+in October as it was, the hedgerows and meadows were still almost
+summer-like in color, though the trees were leafless. The
+delightful-looking old manor-houses and farm-houses, of which they had
+glimpses now and again, were a constant pleasure to Katy, with their
+mullioned windows, twisted chimney-stacks, porches of quaint build, and
+thick-growing ivy. She contrasted them with the uncompromising ugliness
+of farm-houses which she remembered at home, and wondered whether it
+could be that at the end of another thousand years or so, America would
+have picturesque buildings like these to show in addition to her
+picturesque scenery.
+
+Suddenly into the midst of these reflections there glanced a picture so
+vivid that it almost took away her breath, as the train steamed past a
+pack of hounds in full cry, followed by a galloping throng of
+scarlet-coated huntsmen. One horse and rider were in the air, going over
+a wall. Another was just rising to the leap. A string of others, headed
+by a lady, were tearing across a meadow bounded by a little brook, and
+beyond that streamed the hounds following the invisible fox. It was like
+one of Muybridge's instantaneous photographs of "The Horse in Motion,"
+for the moment that it lasted; and Katy put it away in her memory,
+distinct and brilliant, as she might a real picture.
+
+Their destination in London was Batt's Hotel in Dover Street. The old
+gentleman on the "Spartacus," who had "crossed" so many times, had
+furnished Mrs. Ashe with a number of addresses of hotels and
+lodging-houses, from among which Katy had chosen Batt's for the reason
+that it was mentioned in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage." "It was the
+place," she explained, "where Godfrey Percy didn't stay when Lord
+Oldborough sent him the letter." It seemed an odd enough reason for
+going anywhere that a person in a novel didn't stay there. But Mrs. Ashe
+knew nothing of London, and had no preference of her own; so she was
+perfectly willing to give Katy hers, and Batt's was decided upon.
+
+"It is just like a dream or a story," said Katy, as they drove away from
+the London station in a four-wheeler. "It is really ourselves, and this
+is really London! Can you imagine it?"
+
+She looked out. Nothing met her eyes but dingy weather, muddy streets,
+long rows of ordinary brick or stone houses. It might very well have
+been New York or Boston on a foggy day, yet to her eyes all things had a
+subtle difference which made them unlike similar objects at home.
+
+"Wimpole Street!" she cried suddenly, as she caught sight of the name on
+the corner; "that is the street where Maria Crawford in Mansfield Park,
+you know, 'opened one of the best houses' after she married Mr.
+Rushworth. Think of seeing Wimpole Street! What fun!" She looked eagerly
+out after the "best houses," but the whole street looked uninteresting
+and old-fashioned; the best house to be seen was not of a kind, Katy
+thought, to reconcile an ambitious young woman to a dull husband. Katy
+had to remind herself that Miss Austen wrote her novels nearly a century
+ago, that London was a "growing" place, and that things were probably
+much changed since that day.
+
+More "fun" awaited them when they arrived at Batt's, and exactly such a
+landlady sailed forth to welcome them as they had often met with in
+books,--an old landlady, smiling and rubicund, with a towering lace cap
+on her head, a flowered silk gown, a gold chain, and a pair of fat
+mittened hands demurely crossed over a black brocade apron. She alone
+would have been worth crossing the ocean to see, they all declared.
+Their telegram had been received, and rooms were ready, with a bright,
+smoky fire of soft coals; the dinner-table was set, and a nice, formal,
+white-cravated old waiter, who seemed to have stepped out of the same
+book with the landlady, was waiting to serve it. Everything was dingy
+and old-fashioned, but very clean and comfortable; and Katy concluded
+that on the whole Godfrey Percy would have done wisely to go to Batt's,
+and could have fared no better at the other hotel where he did stay.
+
+The first of Katy's "London sights" came to her next morning before she
+was out of her bedroom. She heard a bell ring and a queer squeaking
+little voice utter a speech of which she could not make out a single
+word. Then came a laugh and a shout, as if several boys were amused at
+something or other; and altogether her curiosity was roused, so that she
+finished dressing as fast as she could, and ran to the drawing-room
+window which commanded a view of the street. Quite a little crowd was
+collected under the window, and in their midst was a queer box raised
+high on poles, with little red curtains tied back on either side to form
+a miniature stage, on which puppets were moving and vociferating. Katy
+knew in a moment that she was seeing her first Punch and Judy!
+
+The box and the crowd began to move away. Katy in despair ran to
+Wilkins, the old waiter who was setting the breakfast-table.
+
+"Oh, please stop that man!" she said. "I want to see him."
+
+"What man is it, Miss?" said Wilkins.
+
+When he reached the window and realized what Katy meant, his sense of
+propriety seemed to receive a severe shock. He even ventured on
+remonstrance.
+
+"H'I wouldn't, Miss, h'if h'I was you. Them Punches are a low lot, Miss;
+they h'ought to be put down, really they h'ought. Gentlefolks, h'as a
+general thing, pays no h'attention to them."
+
+But Katy didn't care what "gentlefolks" did or did not do, and insisted
+upon having Punch called back. So Wilkins was forced to swallow his
+remonstrances and his dignity, and go in pursuit of the objectionable
+object. Amy came rushing out, with her hair flying and Mabel in her
+arms; and she and Katy had a real treat of Punch and Judy, with all the
+well-known scenes, and perhaps a few new ones thrown in for their
+especial behoof; for the showman seemed to be inspired by the rapturous
+enjoyment of his little audience of three at the first-floor windows.
+Punch beat Judy and stole the baby, and Judy banged Punch in return, and
+the constable came in and Punch outwitted him, and the hangman and the
+devil made their appearance duly; and it was all perfectly satisfactory,
+and "just exactly what she hoped it would be, and it quite made up for
+the muffins," Katy declared.
+
+Then, when Punch had gone away, the question arose as to what they
+should choose, out of the many delightful things in London, for their
+first morning.
+
+Like ninety-nine Americans out of a hundred, they decided on Westminster
+Abbey; and indeed there is nothing in England better worth seeing, or
+more impressive, in its dim, rich antiquity, to eyes fresh from the
+world which still calls itself "new." So to the Abbey they went, and
+lingered there till Mrs. Ashe declared herself to be absolutely dropping
+with fatigue.
+
+"If you don't take me home and give me something to eat," she said, "I
+shall drop down on one of these pedestals and stay there and be
+exhibited forever after as an 'h'effigy' of somebody belonging to
+ancient English history."
+
+So Katy tore herself away from Henry the Seventh and the Poets' Corner,
+and tore Amy away from a quaint little tomb shaped like a cradle, with
+the marble image of a baby in it, which had greatly taken her fancy. She
+could only be consoled by the promise that she should soon come again
+and stay as long as she liked. She reminded Katy of this promise the
+very next morning.
+
+"Mamma has waked up with rather a bad headache, and she thinks she
+will lie still and not come to breakfast," she reported. "And she
+sends her love, and says will you please have a cab and go where you
+like; and if I won't be a trouble, she would be glad if you would take
+me with you. And I won't be a trouble, Miss Katy, and I know where I
+wish you would go."
+
+"Where is that!"
+
+"To see that cunning little baby again that we saw yesterday. I want to
+show her to Mabel,--she didn't go with us, you know, and I don't like to
+have her mind not improved; and, darling Miss Katy, mayn't I buy some
+flowers and put them on the Baby? She's so dusty and so old that I don't
+believe anybody has put any flowers for her for ever so long."
+
+Katy found this idea rather pretty, and willingly stopped at Covent
+Garden, where they bought a bunch of late roses for eighteen pence,
+which entirely satisfied Amy. With them in her hand, and Mabel in her
+arms, she led the way through the dim aisles of the Abbey, through
+grates and doors and up and down steps; the guide following, but not at
+all needed, for Amy seemed to have a perfectly clear recollection of
+every turn and winding. When the chapel was reached, she laid the roses
+on the tomb with gentle fingers, and a pitiful, reverent look in her
+gray eyes. Then she lifted Mabel up to kiss the odd little baby effigy
+above the marble quilt; whereupon the guide seemed altogether surprised
+out of his composure, and remarked to Katy,--
+
+"Little Miss is an h'American, as is plain to see; no h'English child
+would be likely to think of doing such a thing."
+
+"Do not English children take any interest in the tombs of the Abbey?"
+asked Katy.
+
+"Oh yes, m'm,--h'interest; but they don't take no special notice of one
+tomb above h'another."
+
+Katy could scarcely keep from laughing, especially as she heard Amy, who
+had been listening to the conversation, give an audible sniff, and
+inform Mabel that she was glad _she_ was not an English child, who
+didn't notice things and liked grown-up graves as much as she did dear
+little cunning ones like this!
+
+Later in the day, when Mrs. Ashe was better, they all drove together to
+the quaint old keep which has been the scene of so many tragedies, and
+is known as the Tower of London. Here they were shown various rooms and
+chapels and prisons; and among the rest the apartments where Queen
+Elizabeth, when a friendless young Princess, was shut up for many months
+by her sister, Queen Mary. Katy had read somewhere, and now told Amy,
+the pretty legend of the four little children who lived with their
+parents in the Tower, and used to play with the royal captive; and how
+one little boy brought her a key which he had picked up on the ground,
+and said, "Now you can go out when you will, lady;" and how the Lords of
+the Council, getting wind of it, sent for the children to question them,
+and frightened them and their friends almost to death, and forbade them
+to go near the Princess again.
+
+A story about children always brings the past much nearer to a child,
+and Amy's imagination was so excited by this tale, that when they got to
+the darksome closet which is said to have been the prison of Sir Walter
+Raleigh, she marched out of it with a pale and wrathful face.
+
+"If this is English history, I never mean to learn any more of it, and
+neither shall Mabel," she declared.
+
+But it is not possible for Amy or any one else not to learn a great deal
+of history simply by going about London. So many places are associated
+with people or events, and seeing the places makes one care so much more
+for the people or the events, that one insensibly questions and wonders.
+Katy, who had "browsed" all through her childhood in a good
+old-fashioned library, had her memory stuffed with all manner of little
+scraps of information and literary allusions, which now came into use.
+It was like owning the disjointed bits of a puzzle, and suddenly
+discovering that properly put together they make a pattern. Mrs. Ashe,
+who had never been much of a reader, considered her young friend a
+prodigy of intelligence; but Katy herself realized how inadequate and
+inexact her knowledge was, and how many bits were missing from the
+pattern of her puzzle. She wished with all her heart, as every one
+wishes under such circumstances, that she had studied harder and more
+wisely while the chance was in her power. On a journey you cannot read
+to advantage. Remember that, dear girls, who are looking forward to
+travelling some day, and be industrious in time.
+
+October is not a favorable month in which to see England. Water, water
+is everywhere; you breathe it, you absorb it; it wets your clothes and
+it dampens your spirits. Mrs. Ashe's friends advised her not to think of
+Scotland at that time of the year. One by one their little intended
+excursions were given up. A single day and night in Oxford and
+Stratford-on-Avon; a short visit to the Isle of Wight, where, in a
+country-place which seemed provokingly pretty as far as they could see
+it for the rain, lived that friend of Mrs. Ashe who had married an
+Englishman and in so doing had, as Katy privately thought, "renounced
+the sun;" a peep at Stonehenge from under the shelter of an umbrella,
+and an hour or two in Salisbury Cathedral,--was all that they
+accomplished, except a brief halt at Winchester, that Katy might have
+the privilege of seeing the grave of her beloved Miss Austen. Katy had
+come abroad with a terribly long list of graves to visit, Mrs. Ashe
+declared. They laid a few rain-washed flowers upon the tomb, and
+listened with edification to the verger, who inquired,--
+
+"Whatever was it, ma'am, that lady did which brings so many h'Americans
+to h'ask about her? Our h'English people don't seem to take the same
+h'interest."
+
+"She wrote such delightful stories," explained Katy; but the old verger
+shook his head.
+
+"I think h'it must be some other party, Miss, you've confused with this
+here. It stands to reason, Miss, that we'd have heard of 'em h'over 'ere
+in England sooner than you would h'over there in h'America, if the books
+'ad been h'anything so h'extraordinary."
+
+The night after their return to London they were dining for the second
+time with the cousins of whom Mrs. Ashe had spoken to Dr. Carr; and as
+it happened Katy sat next to a quaint elderly American, who had lived
+for twenty years in London and knew it much better than most Londoners
+do. This gentleman, Mr. Allen Beach, had a hobby for antiquities, old
+books especially, and passed half his time at the British Museum, and
+the other half in sales rooms and the old shops in Wardour Street.
+
+Katy was lamenting over the bad weather which stood in the way of
+their plans.
+
+"It is so vexatious," she said. "Mrs. Ashe meant to go to York and
+Lincoln and all the cathedral towns and to Scotland; and we have had to
+give it all up because of the rains. We shall go away having seen hardly
+anything."
+
+"You can see London."
+
+"We have,--that is, we have seen the things that everybody sees."
+
+"But there are so many things that people in general do not see. How
+much longer are you to stay, Miss Carr?"
+
+"A week, I believe."
+
+"Why don't you make out a list of old buildings which are connected with
+famous people in history, and visit them in turn? I did that the second
+year after I came. I gave up three months to it, and it was most
+interesting. I unearthed all manner of curious stories and traditions."
+
+"Or," cried Katy, struck with a sudden bright thought, "why mightn't
+I put into the list some of the places I know about in books,--novels
+as well as history,--and the places where the people who wrote the
+books lived?"
+
+"You might do that, and it wouldn't be a bad idea, either," said Mr.
+Beach, pleased with her enthusiasm. "I will get a pencil after dinner
+and help you with your list if you will allow me."
+
+Mr. Beach was better than his word. He not only suggested places and
+traced a plan of sight-seeing, but on two different mornings he went
+with them himself; and his intelligent knowledge of London added very
+much to the interest of the excursions. Under his guidance the little
+party of four--for Mabel was never left out; it was _such_ a chance for
+her to improve her mind, Amy declared--visited the Charter-House, where
+Thackeray went to school, and the Home of the Poor Brothers connected
+with it, in which Colonel Newcome answered "Adsum" to the roll-call of
+the angels. They took a look at the small house in Curzon Street, which
+is supposed to have been in Thackeray's mind when he described the
+residence of Becky Sharpe; and the other house in Russell Square which
+is unmistakably that where George Osborne courted Amelia Sedley. They
+went to service in the delightful old church of St. Mary in the Temple,
+and thought of Ivanhoe and Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca the
+Jewess. From there Mr. Beach took them to Lamb's Court, where Pendennis
+and George Warrington dwelt in chambers together; and to Brick Court,
+where Oliver Goldsmith passed so much of his life, and the little rooms
+in which Charles and Mary Lamb spent so many sadly happy years. On
+another day they drove to Whitefriars, for the sake of Lord Glenvarloch
+and the old privilege of Sanctuary in the "Fortunes of Nigel;" and took
+a peep at Bethnal Green, where the Blind Beggar and his "Pretty Bessee"
+lived, and at the old Prison of the Marshalsea, made interesting by its
+associations with "Little Dorrit." They also went to see Milton's house
+and St. Giles Church, in which he is buried; and stood a long time
+before St. James Palace, trying to make out which could have been Miss
+Burney's windows when she was dresser to Queen Charlotte of bitter
+memory. And they saw Paternoster Row and No. 5 Cheyne Walk, sacred
+forevermore to the memory of Thomas Carlyle, and Whitehall, where Queen
+Elizabeth lay in state and King Charles was beheaded, and the state
+rooms of Holland House; and by great good luck had a glimpse of George
+Eliot getting out of a cab. She stood for a moment while she gave her
+fare to the cabman, and Katy looked as one who might not look again, and
+carried away a distinct picture of the unbeautiful, interesting,
+remarkable face.
+
+With all this to see and to do, the last week sped all too swiftly, and
+the last day came before they were at all ready to leave what Katy
+called "Story-book England." Mrs. Ashe had decided to cross by Newhaven
+and Dieppe, because some one had told her of the beautiful old town of
+Rouen, and it seemed easy and convenient to take it on the way to Paris.
+Just landed from the long voyage across the Atlantic, the little passage
+of the Channel seemed nothing to our travellers, and they made ready for
+their night on the Dieppe steamer with the philosophy which is born of
+ignorance. They were speedily undeceived!
+
+The English Channel has a character of its own, which distinguishes it
+from other seas and straits. It seems made fractious and difficult by
+Nature, and set as on purpose to be barrier between two nations who are
+too unlike to easily understand each other, and are the safer neighbors
+for this wholesome difficulty of communication between them. The "chop"
+was worse than usual on the night when our travellers crossed; the
+steamer had to fight her way inch by inch. And oh, such a little
+steamer! and oh, such a long night!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ACROSS THE CHANNEL.
+
+
+Dawn had given place to day, and day was well advanced toward noon,
+before the stout little steamer gained her port. It was hours after
+the usual time for arrival; the train for Paris must long since have
+started, and Katy felt dejected and forlorn as, making her way out of
+the terrible ladies'-cabin, she crept on deck for her first glimpse
+of France.
+
+The sun was struggling through the fog with a watery smile, and his
+faint beams shone on a confusion of stone piers, higher than the
+vessel's deck, intersected with canal-like waterways, through whose
+intricate windings the steamer was slowly threading her course to the
+landing-place. Looking up, Katy could see crowds of people assembled to
+watch the boat come in,--workmen, peasants, women, children, soldiers,
+custom-house officers, moving to and fro,--and all this crowd were
+talking all at once and all were talking French!
+
+I don't know why this should have startled her as it did. She knew, of
+course, that people of different countries were liable to be found
+speaking their own languages; but somehow the spectacle of the
+chattering multitude, all seeming so perfectly at ease with their
+preterits and subjunctives and never once having to refer to Ollendorf
+or a dictionary, filled her with a sense of dismayed surprise.
+
+"Good gracious!" she said to herself, "even the babies understand it!"
+She racked her brains to recall what she had once known of French, but
+very little seemed to have survived the horrors of the night!
+
+"Oh dear! what is the word for trunk-key?" she asked herself. "They will
+all begin to ask questions, and I shall not have a word to say; and Mrs.
+Ashe will be even worse off, I know." She saw the red-trousered
+custom-house officers pounce upon the passengers as they landed one by
+one, and she felt her heart sink within her.
+
+But after all, when the time came it did not prove so very bad. Katy's
+pleasant looks and courteous manner stood her in good stead. She did not
+trust herself to say much; but the officials seemed to understand
+without saying. They bowed and gestured, whisked the keys in and out,
+and in a surprisingly short time all was pronounced right, the baggage
+had "passed," and it and its owners were free to proceed to the
+railway-station, which fortunately was close at hand.
+
+Inquiry revealed the fact that no train for Paris left till four in the
+afternoon.
+
+"I am rather glad," declared poor Mrs. Ashe, "for I feel too used up to
+move. I will lie here on this sofa; and, Katy dear, please see if there
+is an eating-place, and get some breakfast for yourself and Amy, and
+send me a cup of tea."
+
+"I don't like to leave you alone," Katy was beginning; but at that
+moment a nice old woman who seemed to be in charge of the waiting-room
+appeared, and with a flood of French which none of them could follow,
+but which was evidently sympathetic in its nature, flew at Mrs. Ashe and
+began to make her comfortable. From a cupboard in the wall she produced
+a pillow, from another cupboard a blanket; in a trice she had one under
+Mrs. Ashe's head and the other wrapped round her feet.
+
+"Pauvre madame," she said, "si pâle! si souffrante! Il faut avoir
+quelque chose à boire et à manger tout de suite." She trotted across the
+room and into the restaurant which opened out of it, while Mrs. Ashe
+smiled at Katy and said, "You see you can leave me quite safely; I am to
+be taken care of." And Katy and Amy passed through the same door into
+the _buffet_, and sat down at a little table.
+
+It was a particularly pleasant-looking place to breakfast in. There were
+many windows with bright polished panes and very clean short muslin
+curtains, and on the window-sills stood rows of thrifty potted plants in
+full bloom,--marigolds, balsams, nasturtiums, and many colored
+geraniums. Two birds in cages were singing loudly; the floor was waxed
+to a glass-like polish; nothing could have been whiter than the marble
+of the tables except the napkins laid over them. And such a good
+breakfast as was presently brought to them,--delicious coffee in
+bowl-like cups, crisp rolls and rusks, an omelette with a delicate
+flavor of fine herbs, stewed chicken, little pats of freshly churned
+butter without salt, shaped like shells and tasting like solidified
+cream, and a pot of some sort of nice preserve. Amy made great delighted
+eyes at Katy, and remarking, "I think France is heaps nicer than that
+old England," began to eat with a will; and Katy herself felt that if
+this railroad meal was a specimen of what they had to expect in the
+future, they had indeed come to a land of plenty.
+
+Fortified with the satisfactory breakfast, she felt equal to a walk; and
+after they had made sure that Mrs. Ashe had all she needed, she and Amy
+(and Mabel) set off by themselves to see the sights of Dieppe. I don't
+know that travellers generally have considered Dieppe an interesting
+place, but Katy found it so. There was a really old church and some
+quaint buildings of the style of two centuries back, and even the more
+modern streets had a novel look to her unaccustomed eyes. At first they
+only ventured a timid turn or two, marking each corner, and going back
+now and then to reassure themselves by a look at the station; but after
+a while, growing bolder, Katy ventured to ask a question or two in
+French, and was surprised and charmed to find herself understood. After
+that she grew adventurous, and, no longer fearful of being lost, led Amy
+straight down a long street lined with shops, almost all of which were
+for the sale of articles in ivory.
+
+Ivory wares are one of the chief industries of Dieppe. There were cases
+full, windows full, counters full, of the most exquisite combs and
+brushes, some with elaborate monograms in silver and colors, others
+plain; there were boxes and caskets of every size and shape, ornaments,
+fans, parasol handles, looking-glasses, frames for pictures large and
+small, napkin-rings.
+
+Katy was particularly smitten with a paper-knife in the form of an angel
+with long slender wings raised over its head and meeting to form a
+point. Its price was twenty francs, and she was strongly tempted to buy
+it for Clover or Rose Red. But she said to herself sensibly, "This is
+the first shop I have been into and the first thing I have really wanted
+to buy, and very likely as we go on I shall see things I like better and
+want more, so it would be foolish to do it. No, I won't." And she
+resolutely turned her back on the ivory angel, and walked away.
+
+The next turn brought them to a gay-looking little market-place, where
+old women in white caps were sitting on the ground beside baskets and
+panniers full of apples, pears, and various queer and curly vegetables,
+none of which Katy recognized as familiar; fish of all shapes and colors
+were flapping in shallow tubs of sea-water; there were piles of
+stockings, muffetees, and comforters in vivid blue and red worsted, and
+coarse pottery glazed in bright patterns. The faces of the women were
+brown and wrinkled; there were no pretty ones among them, but their
+black eyes were full of life and quickness, and their fingers one and
+all clicked with knitting-needles, as their tongues flew equally fast in
+the chatter and the chaffer, which went on without stop or stay, though
+customers did not seem to be many and sales were few.
+
+Returning to the station they found that Mrs. Ashe had been asleep
+during their absence, and seemed so much better that it was with greatly
+amended spirits that they took their places in the late afternoon train
+which was to set them down at Rouen. Katy said they were like the Wise
+Men of the East, "following a star," in their choice of a hotel; for,
+having no better advice, they had decided upon one of those thus
+distinguished in Baedeker's Guide-book.
+
+The star did not betray their confidence; for the Hôtel de la Cloche, to
+which it led them, proved to be quaint and old, and very pleasant of
+aspect. The lofty chambers, with their dimly frescoed ceilings, and beds
+curtained with faded patch, might to all appearances have been furnished
+about the time when "Columbus crossed the ocean blue;" but everything
+was clean, and had an air of old-time respectability. The dining-room,
+which was evidently of more modern build, opened into a square courtyard
+where oleanders and lemon trees in boxes stood round the basin of a
+little fountain, whose tinkle and plash blended agreeably with the
+rattle of the knives and forks. In one corner of the room was a raised
+and railed platform, where behind a desk sat the mistress of the house,
+busy with her account-books, but keeping an eye the while on all that
+went forward.
+
+Mrs. Ashe walked past this personage without taking any notice of her,
+as Americans are wont to do under such circumstances; but presently the
+observant Katy noticed that every one else, as they went in or out of
+the room, addressed a bow or a civil remark to this lady. She quite
+blushed at the recollection afterward, as she made ready for bed.
+
+"How rude we must have seemed!" she thought. "I am afraid the people
+here think that Americans have _awful_ manners, everybody is so polite.
+They said 'Bon soir' and 'Merci' and 'Voulez-vous avoir la bonté,' to
+the waiters even! Well, there is one thing,--I am going to reform.
+To-morrow I will be as polite as anybody. They will think that I am
+miraculously improved by one night on French soil; but, never mind! I am
+going to do it."
+
+She kept her resolution, and astonished Mrs. Ashe next morning, by
+bowing to the dame on the platform in the most winning manner, and
+saying, "Bon jour, madame," as they went by.
+
+"But, Katy, who is that person? Why do you speak to her?"
+
+"Don't you see that they all do? She is the landlady, I think; at all
+events, everybody bows to her. And just notice how prettily these ladies
+at the next table speak to the waiter. They do not order him to do
+things as we do at home. I noticed it last night, and I liked it so much
+that I made a resolution to get up and be as polite as the French
+themselves this morning."
+
+So all the time that they went about the sumptuous old city, rich in
+carvings and sculptures and traditions, while they were looking at the
+Cathedral and the wonderful church of St. Ouen, and the Palace of
+Justice, and the "Place of the Maid," where poor Jeanne d'Arc was burned
+and her ashes scattered to the winds, Katy remembered her manners, and
+smiled and bowed, and used courteous prefixes in a soft pleasant voice;
+and as Mrs. Ashe and Amy fell in with her example more or less, I think
+the guides and coachmen and the old women who showed them over the
+buildings felt that the air of France was very civilizing indeed, and
+that these strangers from savage countries over the sea were in a fair
+way to be as well bred as if they had been born in a more favored part
+of the world!
+
+Paris looked very modern after the peculiar quaint richness and air of
+the Middle Ages which distinguish Rouen. Rooms had been engaged for
+Mrs. Ashe's party in a _pension_ near the Arc d'Étoile, and there they
+drove immediately on arriving. The rooms were not in the _pension_
+itself, but in a house close by,--a sitting-room with six mirrors,
+three clocks, and a pinched little grate about a foot wide, a
+dining-room just large enough for a table and four chairs, and two
+bedrooms. A maid called Amandine had been detailed to take charge of
+these rooms and serve their meals.
+
+Dampness, as Katy afterward wrote to Clover, was the first impression
+they received of "gay Paris." The tiny fire in the tiny grate had only
+just been lighted, and the walls and the sheets and even the blankets
+felt chilly and moist to the touch. They spent their first evening in
+hanging the bedclothes round the grate and piling on fuel; they even set
+the mattresses up on edge to warm and dry! It was not very enlivening,
+it must be confessed. Amy had taken a cold, Mrs. Ashe looked worried,
+and Katy thought of Burnet and the safety and comfort of home with a
+throb of longing.
+
+The days that ensued were not brilliant enough to remove this
+impression. The November fogs seemed to have followed them across the
+Channel, and Paris remained enveloped in a wet blanket which dimmed and
+hid its usually brilliant features. Going about in cabs with the windows
+drawn up, and now and then making a rush through the drip into shops,
+was not exactly delightful, but it seemed pretty much all that they
+could do. It was worse for Amy, whose cold kept her indoors and denied
+her even the relaxation of the cab. Mrs. Ashe had engaged a
+well-recommended elderly English maid to come every morning and take
+care of Amy while they were out; and with this respectable functionary,
+whose ideas were of a rigidly British type and who did not speak a word
+of any language but her own, poor Amy was compelled to spend most of her
+time. Her only consolation was in persuading this serene attendant to
+take a part in the French lessons which she made a daily point of giving
+to Mabel out of her own little phrase-book.
+
+"Wilkins is getting on, I think," she told Katy one night. "She says
+'Biscuit glacé' quite nicely now. But I never will let her look at the
+book, though she always wants to; for if once she saw how the words are
+spelled, she would never in the world pronounce them right again. They
+look so very different, you know."
+
+Katy looked at Amy's pale little face and eager eyes with a real
+heartache. Her rapture when at the end of the long dull afternoons her
+mother returned to her was touching. Paris was very _triste_ to poor
+Amy, with all her happy facility for amusing herself; and Katy felt that
+the sooner they got away from it the better it would be. So, in spite of
+the delight which her brief glimpses at the Louvre gave her, and the fun
+it was to go about with Mrs. Ashe and see her buy pretty things, and the
+real satisfaction she took in the one perfectly made walking-suit to
+which she had treated herself, she was glad when the final day came,
+when the belated dressmakers and artistes in jackets and wraps had sent
+home their last wares, and the trunks were packed. It had been rather
+the fault of circumstances than of Paris; but Katy had not learned to
+love the beautiful capital as most Americans do, and did not feel at all
+as if she wanted that her "reward of virtue" should be to go there when
+she died! There must be more interesting places for live people, and
+ghosts too, to be found on the map of Europe, she was sure.
+
+Next morning as they drove slowly down the Champs Élysées, and
+looked back for a last glimpse of the famous Arch, a bright object
+met their eyes, moving vaguely against the mist. It was the gay red
+wagon of the Bon Marché, carrying bundles home to the dwellers of
+some up-town street.
+
+Katy burst out laughing. "It is an emblem of Paris," she said,--"of our
+Paris, I mean. It has been all Bon Marché and fog!"
+
+"Miss Katy," interrupted Amy, "_do_ you like Europe? For my part, I was
+never so disgusted with any place in my life!"
+
+"Poor little bird, her views of 'Europe' are rather dark just now, and
+no wonder," said her mother. "Never mind, darling, you shall have
+something pleasanter by and by if I can find it for you."
+
+"Burnet is a great deal pleasanter than Paris," pronounced Amy,
+decidedly. "It doesn't keep always raining there, and I can take walks,
+and I understand everything that people say."
+
+All that day they sped southward, and with every hour came a change in
+the aspect of their surroundings. Now they made brief stops in large
+busy towns which seemed humming with industry. Now they whirled through
+grape countries with miles of vineyards, where the brown leaves still
+hung on the vines. Then again came glimpses of old Roman ruins,
+amphitheatres, viaducts, fragments of wall or arch; or a sudden chill
+betokened their approach to mountains, where snowy peaks could be seen
+on the far horizon. And when the long night ended and day roused them
+from broken slumbers, behold, the world was made over! Autumn had
+vanished, and the summer, which they thought fled for good, had taken
+his place. Green woods waved about them, fresh leaves were blowing in
+the wind, roses and hollyhocks beckoned from white-walled gardens; and
+before they had done with exclaiming and rejoicing, the Mediterranean
+shot into view, intensely blue, with white fringes of foam, white sails
+blowing across, white gulls flying above it, and over all a sky of the
+same exquisite blue, whose clouds were white as the drifting sails on
+the water below, and they were at Marseilles.
+
+It was like a glimpse of Paradise to eyes fresh from autumnal grays and
+glooms, as they sped along the lovely coast, every curve and turn
+showing new combinations of sea and shore, olive-crowned cliff and
+shining mountain-peak. With every mile the blue became bluer, the wind
+softer, the feathery verdure more dense and summer-like. Hyères and
+Cannes and Antibes were passed, and then, as they rounded a long point,
+came the view of a sunshiny city lying on a sunlit shore; the train
+slackened its speed, and they knew that their journey's end was come and
+they were in Nice.
+
+The place seemed to laugh with gayety as they drove down the Promenade
+des Anglais and past the English garden, where the band was playing
+beneath the acacias and palm-trees. On one side was a line of
+bright-windowed hotels and _pensions_, with balconies and striped
+awnings; on the other, the long reach of yellow sand-beach, where ladies
+were grouped on shawls and rugs, and children ran up and down in the
+sun, while beyond stretched the waveless sea. The December sun felt as
+warm as on a late June day at home, and had the same soft caressing
+touch. The pavements were thronged with groups of leisurely-looking
+people, all wearing an unmistakable holiday aspect; pretty girls in
+correct Parisian costumes walked demurely beside their mothers, with
+cavaliers in attendance; and among these young men appeared now and
+again the well-known uniform of the United States Navy.
+
+"I wonder," said Mrs. Ashe, struck by a sudden thought, "if by any
+chance our squadron is here." She asked the question the moment they
+entered the hotel; and the porter, who prided himself on understanding
+"zose Eenglesh," replied,--
+
+"Mais oui, Madame, ze Americaine fleet it is here; zat is, not here,
+but at Villefranche, just a leetle four mile away,--it is ze same
+zing exactly."
+
+"Katy, do you hear that?" cried Mrs. Ashe. "The frigates _are_ here, and
+the 'Natchitoches' among them of course; and we shall have Ned to go
+about with us everywhere. It is a real piece of good luck for us. Ladies
+are at such a loss in a place like this with nobody to escort them. I am
+perfectly delighted."
+
+"So am I," said Katy. "I never saw a frigate, and I always wanted to see
+one. Do you suppose they will let us go on board of them?"
+
+"Why, of course they will." Then to the porter, "Give me a sheet
+of paper and an envelope, please.--I must let Ned know that I am
+here at once."
+
+Mrs. Ashe wrote her note and despatched it before they went upstairs to
+take off their bonnets. She seemed to have a half-hope that some bird of
+the air might carry the news of her arrival to her brother, for she kept
+running to the window as if in expectation of seeing him. She was too
+restless to lie down or sleep, and after she and Katy had lunched,
+proposed that they should go out on the beach for a while.
+
+"Perhaps we may come across Ned," she remarked.
+
+They did not come across Ned, but there was no lack of other
+delightful objects to engage their attention. The sands were smooth
+and hard as a floor. Soft pink lights were beginning to tinge the
+western sky. To the north shone the peaks of the maritime Alps, and
+the same rosy glow caught them here and there, and warmed their grays
+and whites into color.
+
+"I wonder what that can be?" said Katy, indicating the rocky point which
+bounded the beach to the east, where stood a picturesque building of
+stone, with massive towers and steep pitches of roof. "It looks half
+like a house and half like a castle, but it is quite fascinating, I
+think. Do you suppose that people live there?"
+
+"We might ask," suggested Mrs. Ashe.
+
+Just then they came to a shallow river spanned by a bridge, beside whose
+pebbly bed stood a number of women who seemed to be washing clothes by
+the simple and primitive process of laying them in the water on top of
+the stones, and pounding them with a flat wooden paddle till they were
+white. Katy privately thought that the clothes stood a poor chance of
+lasting through these cleansing operations; but she did not say so, and
+made the inquiry which Mrs. Ashe had suggested, in her best French.
+
+"Celle-là?" answered the old woman whom she had addressed. "Mais c'est
+la Pension Suisse."
+
+"A _pension_; why, that means a boarding-house," cried Katy. "What fun
+it must be to board there!"
+
+"Well, why shouldn't we board there!" said her friend. "You know we
+meant to look for rooms as soon as we were rested and had found out a
+little about the place. Let us walk on and see what the Pension Suisse
+is like. If the inside is as pleasant as the outside, we could not do
+better, I should think."
+
+"Oh, I do hope all the rooms are not already taken," said Katy, who had
+fallen in love at first sight with the Pension Suisse. She felt quite
+oppressed with anxiety as they rang the bell.
+
+The Pension Suisse proved to be quite as charming inside as out. The
+thick stone walls made deep sills and embrasures for the casement
+windows, which were furnished with red cushions to serve as seats and
+lounging-places. Every window seemed to command a view, for those which
+did not look toward the sea looked toward the mountains. The house was
+by no means full, either. Several sets of rooms were to be had; and Katy
+felt as if she had walked straight into the pages of a romance When Mrs.
+Ashe engaged for a month a delightful suite of three, a sitting-room and
+two sleeping-chambers, in a round tower, with a balcony overhanging the
+water, and a side window, from which a flight of steps led down into a
+little walled garden, nestled in among the masonry, where tall
+laurestinus and lemon trees grew, and orange and brown wallflowers made
+the air sweet. Her contentment knew no bounds.
+
+"I am so glad that I came," she told Mrs. Ashe. "I never confessed it to
+you before; but sometimes.--when we were sick at sea, you know, and when
+it would rain all the time, and after Amy caught that cold in Paris--I
+have almost wished, just for a minute or two at a time, that we hadn't.
+But now I wouldn't not have come for the world! This is perfectly
+delicious. I am glad, glad, glad we are here, and we are going to have a
+lovely time, I know."
+
+They were passing out of the rooms into the hall as she said these
+words, and two ladies who were walking up a cross passage turned their
+heads at the sound of her voice. To her great surprise Katy recognized
+Mrs. Page and Lilly.
+
+"Why, Cousin Olivia, is it you?" she cried, springing forward with
+the cordiality one naturally feels in seeing a familiar face in a
+foreign land.
+
+Mrs. Page seemed rather puzzled than cordial. She put up her eyeglass
+and did not seem to quite make out who Katy was.
+
+"It is Katy Carr, mamma," explained Lilly. "Well, Katy, this _is_ a
+surprise! Who would have thought of meeting you in Nice!"
+
+There was a decided absence of rapture in Lilly's manner. She was
+prettier than ever, as Katy saw in a moment, and beautifully dressed in
+soft brown velvet, which exactly suited her complexion and her
+pale-colored wavy hair.
+
+"Katy Carr! why, so it is," admitted Mrs. Page. "It is a surprise
+indeed. We had no idea that you were abroad. What has brought you so far
+from Tunket,--Burnet, I mean? Who are you with?"
+
+"With my friend Mrs. Ashe," explained Katy, rather chilled by this cool
+reception.
+
+"Let me introduce you. Mrs. Ashe, these are my cousins Mrs. Page and
+Miss Page. Amy,--why where is Amy?"
+
+Amy had walked back to the door of the garden staircase, and was
+standing there looking down upon the flowers.
+
+Cousin Olivia bowed rather distantly. Her quick eye took in the details
+of Mrs. Ashe's travelling-dress and Katy's dark blue ulster.
+
+"Some countrified friend from that dreadful Western town where they
+live," she said to herself. "How foolish of Philip Carr to try to send
+his girls to Europe! He can't afford it, I know." Her voice was rather
+rigid as she inquired,--
+
+"And what brings you here?--to this house, I mean?"
+
+"Oh, we are coming to-morrow to stay; we have taken rooms for a month,"
+explained Katy. "What a delicious-looking old place it is."
+
+"Have you?" said Lilly, in a voice which did not express any particular
+pleasure. "Why, we are staying here too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE PENSION SUISSE.
+
+
+"What do you suppose can have brought Katy Carr to Europe?" inquired
+Lilly, as she stood in the window watching the three figures walk slowly
+down the sands. "She is the last person I expected to turn up here. I
+supposed she was stuck in that horrid place--what is the name of
+it?--where they live, for the rest of her life."
+
+"I confess I am surprised at meeting her myself," rejoined Mrs. Page. "I
+had no idea that her father could afford so expensive a journey."
+
+"And who is this woman that she has got along with her?"
+
+"I have no idea, I'm sure. Some Western friend, I suppose."
+
+"Dear me, I wish they were going to some other house than this," said
+Lilly, discontentedly. "If they were at the Rivoir, for instance, or one
+of those places at the far end of the beach, we shouldn't need to see
+anything of them, or even know that they were in town! It's a real
+nuisance to have people spring upon you this way, people you don't want
+to meet; and when they happen to be relations it is all the worse. Katy
+will be hanging on us all the time, I'm afraid."
+
+"Oh, my dear, there is no fear of that. A little repression on our part
+will prevent her from being any trouble, I'm quite certain. But we
+_must_ treat her politely, you know, Lilly; her father is my cousin."
+
+"That's the saddest part of it! Well, there's one thing, I shall _not_
+take her with me every time we go to the frigates," said Lilly,
+decisively. "I am not going to inflict a country cousin on Lieutenant
+Worthington, and spoil all my own fun beside. So I give you fair
+warning, mamma, and you must manage it somehow."
+
+"Certainly, dear, I will. It would be a great pity to have your visit to
+Nice spoiled in any way, with the squadron here too, and that pleasant
+Mr. Worthington so very attentive."
+
+Unconscious of these plans for her suppression, Katy walked back to the
+hotel in a mood of pensive pleasure. Europe at last promised to be as
+delightful as it had seemed when she only knew it from maps and books,
+and Nice so far appeared to her the most charming place in the world.
+
+Somebody was waiting for them at the Hotel des Anglais,--a tall,
+bronzed, good-looking somebody in uniform, with pleasant brown eyes
+beaming from beneath a gold-banded cap; at the sight of whom Amy rushed
+forward with her long locks flying, and Mrs. Ashe uttered an exclamation
+of pleasure. It was Ned Worthington, Mrs. Ashe's only brother, whom she
+had not met for two years and a half; and you can easily imagine how
+glad she was to see him.
+
+"You got my note then?" she said after the first eager greetings were
+over and she had introduced him to Katy.
+
+"Note? No. Did you write me a note?"
+
+"Yes; to Villefranche."
+
+"To the ship? I shan't get that till tomorrow. No; finding out that you
+were here is just a bit of good fortune. I came over to call on some
+friends who are staying down the beach a little way, and dropping in to
+look over the list of arrivals, as I generally do, I saw your names; and
+the porter not being able to say which way you had gone, I waited for
+you to come in."
+
+"We have been looking at such a delightful old place, the Pension
+Suisse, and have taken rooms."
+
+"The Pension Suisse, eh? Why, that was where I was going to call. I know
+some people who are staying there. It seems a pleasant house; I'm glad
+you are going there, Polly. It's first-rate luck that the ships happen
+to be here just now. I can see you every day."
+
+"But, Ned, surely you are not leaving me so soon? Surely you will stay
+and dine with us?" urged his sister, as he took up his cap.
+
+"I wish I could, but I can't to-night, Polly. You see I had engaged to
+take some ladies out to drive, and they will expect me. I had no idea
+that you would be here, or I should have kept myself free,"
+apologetically. "Tomorrow I will come over early, and be at your service
+for whatever you like to do."
+
+"That's right, dear boy. We shall expect you." Then, the moment he was
+gone, "Now, Katy, isn't he nice?"
+
+"Very nice, I should think," said Katy, who had watched the brief
+interview with interest. "I like his face so much, and how fond he
+is of you!"
+
+"Dear fellow! so he is. I am seven years older than he, but we have
+always been intimate. Brothers and sisters are not always intimate, you
+know,--or perhaps you don't know, for all of yours are."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Katy, with a happy smile. "There is nobody like
+Clover and Elsie, except perhaps Johnnie and Dorry and Phil," she added
+with a laugh.
+
+The remove to the Pension Suisse was made early the next morning. Mrs.
+Page and Lilly did not appear to welcome them. Katy rather rejoiced in
+their absence, for she wanted the chance to get into order without
+interruptions.
+
+There was something comfortable in the thought that they were to stay a
+whole month in these new quarters; for so long a time, it seemed worth
+while to make them pretty and homelike. So, while Mrs. Ashe unpacked her
+own belongings and Amy's, Katy, who had a natural turn for arranging
+rooms, took possession of the little parlor, pulled the furniture into
+new positions, laid out portfolios and work-cases and their few books,
+pinned various photographs which they had bought in Oxford and London on
+the walls, and tied back the curtains to admit the sunshine. Then she
+paid a visit to the little garden, and came back with a long branch of
+laurestinus, which she trained across the mantelpiece, and a bunch of
+wallflowers for their one little vase. The maid, by her orders, laid a
+fire of wood and pine cones ready for lighting; and when all was done
+she called Mrs. Ashe to pronounce upon the effect.
+
+"It is lovely," she said, sinking into a great velvet arm-chair which
+Katy had drawn close to the seaward window. "I haven't seen anything so
+pleasant since we left home. You are a witch, Katy, and the comfort of
+my life. I am so glad I brought you! Now, pray go and unpack your own
+things, and make yourself look nice for the second breakfast. We have
+been a shabby set enough since we arrived. I saw those cousins of yours
+looking askance at our old travelling-dresses yesterday. Let us try to
+make a more respectable impression to-day."
+
+So they went down to breakfast, Mrs. Ashe in one of her new Paris gowns,
+Katy in a pretty dress of olive serge, and Amy all smiles and ruffled
+pinafore, walking hand in hand with her uncle Ned, who had just arrived
+and whose great ally she was; and Mrs. Page and Lilly, who were already
+seated at table, had much ado to conceal their somewhat unflattering
+surprise at the conjunction. For one moment Lilly's eyes opened into a
+wide stare of incredulous astonishment; then she remembered herself,
+nodded as pleasantly as she could to Mrs. Ashe and Katy, and favored
+Lieutenant Worthington with a pretty blushing smile as he went by, while
+she murmured,--
+
+"Mamma, do you see that? What does it mean?"
+
+"Why, Ned, do you know those people?" asked Mrs. Ashe at the same
+moment.
+
+"Do _you_ know them!"
+
+"Yes; we met yesterday. They are connections of my friend Miss Carr."
+
+"Really? There is not the least family likeness between them." And Mr.
+Worthington's eyes travelled deliberately from Lilly's delicate, golden
+prettiness to Katy, who, truth to say, did not shine by the contrast.
+
+"She has a nice, sensible sort of face," he thought, "and she looks like
+a lady, but for beauty there is no comparison between the two." Then he
+turned to listen to his sister as she replied,--
+
+"No, indeed, not the least; no two girls could be less like." Mrs. Ashe
+had made the same comparison, but with quite a different result. Katy's
+face was grown dear to her, and she had not taken the smallest fancy to
+Lilly Page.
+
+Her relationship to the young naval officer, however, made a wonderful
+difference in the attitude of Mrs. Page and Lilly toward the party. Katy
+became a person to be cultivated rather than repressed, and
+thenceforward there was no lack of cordiality on their part.
+
+"I want to come in and have a good talk," said Lilly, slipping her arm
+through Katy's as they left the dining-room. "Mayn't I come now while
+mamma is calling on Mrs. Ashe?" This arrangement brought her to the side
+of Lieutenant Worthington, and she walked between him and Katy down the
+hall and into the little drawing-room.
+
+"Oh, how perfectly charming! You have been fixing up ever since you
+came, haven't you? It looks like home. I wish we had a _salon_, but
+mamma thought it wasn't worth while, as we were only to be here such a
+little time. What a delicious balcony over the water, too! May I go out
+on it? Oh, Mr. Worthington, do see this!"
+
+She pushed open the half-closed window and stepped out as she spoke. Mr.
+Worthington, after hesitating a moment, followed. Katy paused uncertain.
+There was hardly room for three in the balcony, yet she did not quite
+like to leave them. But Lilly had turned her back, and was talking in a
+low tone; it was nothing more in reality than the lightest chit-chat,
+but it had the air of being something confidential; so Katy, after
+waiting a little while, retreated to the sofa, and took up her work,
+joining now and then in the conversation which Mrs. Ashe was keeping up
+with Cousin Olivia. She did not mind Lilly's ill-breeding, nor was she
+surprised at it. Mrs. Ashe was less tolerant.
+
+"Isn't it rather damp out there, Ned?" she called to her brother; "you
+had better throw my shawl round Miss Page's shoulders."
+
+"Oh, it isn't a bit damp," said Lilly, recalled to herself by this broad
+hint. "Thank you so much for thinking of it, Mrs. Ashe, but I am just
+coming in." She seated herself beside Katy, and began to question her
+rather languidly.
+
+"When did you leave home, and how were they all when you came away?"
+
+"All well, thank you. We sailed from Boston on the 14th of October; and
+before that I spent two days with Rose Red,--you remember her? She is
+married now, and has the dearest little home and such a darling baby."
+
+"Yes, I heard of her marriage. It didn't seem much of a match for Mr.
+Redding's daughter to make, did it? I never supposed she would be
+satisfied with anything less than a member of Congress or a Secretary of
+Legation."
+
+"Rose isn't particularly ambitious, I think, and she seems perfectly
+happy," replied Katy, flushing.
+
+"Oh, you needn't fire up in her defence; you and Clover always did adore
+Rose Red, I know, but I never could see what there was about her that
+was so wonderfully fascinating. She never had the least style, and she
+was always just as rude to me as she could be."
+
+"You were not intimate at school, but I am sure Rose was never rude,"
+said Katy, with spirit.
+
+"Well, we won't fight about her at this late day. Tell me where you have
+been, and where you are going, and how long you are to stay in Europe."
+
+Katy, glad to change the subject, complied, and the conversation
+diverged into comparison of plans and experiences. Lilly had been in
+Europe nearly a year, and had seen "almost everything," as she phrased
+it. She and her mother had spent the previous winter in Italy, had taken
+a run into Russia, "done" Switzerland and the Tyrol thoroughly, and
+France and Germany, and were soon going into Spain, and from there to
+Paris, to shop in preparation for their return home in the spring.
+
+"Of course we shall want quantities of things," she said. "No one will
+believe that we have been abroad unless we bring home a lot of clothes.
+The _lingerie_ and all that is ordered already; but the dresses must be
+made at the last moment, and we shall have a horrid time of it, I
+suppose. Worth has promised to make me two walking-suits and two
+ball-dresses, but he's very bad about keeping his word. Did you do much
+when you were in Paris, Katy?"
+
+"We went to the Louvre three times, and to Versailles and St. Cloud,"
+said Katy, wilfully misunderstanding her.
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that kind of stupid thing; I meant gowns. What
+did you buy?"
+
+"One tailor-made suit of dark blue cloth."
+
+"My! what moderation!"
+
+Shopping played a large part in Lilly's reminiscences. She recollected
+places, not from their situation or beauty or historical associations,
+or because of the works of art which they contained, but as the places
+where she bought this or that.
+
+"Oh, that dear Piazza di Spagna!" she would say; "that was where I
+found my rococo necklace, the loveliest thing you ever saw, Katy." Or,
+"Prague--oh yes, mother got the most enchanting old silver chatelaine
+there, with all kinds of things hanging to it,--needlecases and watches
+and scent-bottles, all solid, and so beautifully chased." Or again,
+"Berlin was horrid, we thought; but the amber is better and cheaper
+than anywhere else,--great strings of beads, of the largest size and
+that beautiful pale yellow, for a hundred francs. You must get yourself
+one, Katy."
+
+Poor Lilly! Europe to her was all "things." She had collected trunks
+full of objects to carry home, but of the other collections which do not
+go into trunks, she had little or none. Her mind was as empty, her heart
+as untouched as ever; the beauty and the glory and the pathos of art and
+history and Nature had been poured out in vain before her closed and
+indifferent eyes.
+
+Life soon dropped into a peaceful routine at the Pension Suisse, which
+was at the same time restful and stimulating. Katy's first act in the
+morning, as soon as she opened her eyes, was to hurry to the window in
+hopes of getting a glimpse of Corsica. She had discovered that this
+elusive island could almost always be seen from Nice at the dawning, but
+that as soon as the sun was fairly up, it vanished to appear no more for
+the rest of the day. There was something fascinating to her imagination
+in the hovering mountain outline between sea and sky. She felt as if she
+were under an engagement to be there to meet it, and she rarely missed
+the appointment. Then, after Corsica had pulled the bright mists over
+its face and melted from view, she would hurry with her dressing, and as
+soon as was practicable set to work to make the _salon_ look bright
+before the coffee and rolls should appear, a little after eight o'clock.
+Mrs. Ashe always found the fire lit, the little meal cosily set out
+beside it, and Katy's happy untroubled face to welcome her when she
+emerged from her room; and the cheer of these morning repasts made a
+good beginning for the day.
+
+Then came walking and a French lesson, and a long sitting on the beach,
+while Katy worked at her home letters and Amy raced up and down in the
+sun; and then toward noon Lieutenant Ned generally appeared, and some
+scheme of pleasure was set on foot. Mrs. Ashe ignored his evident
+_penchant_ for Lilly Page, and claimed his time and attentions as hers
+by right. Young Worthington was a good deal "taken" with the pretty
+Lilly; still, he had an old-time devotion for his sister and the habit
+of doing what she desired, and he yielded to her behests with no audible
+objections. He made a fourth in the carriage while they drove over the
+lovely hills which encircle Nice toward the north, to Cimiers and the
+Val de St. André, or down the coast toward Ventimiglia. He went with
+them to Monte-Carlo and Mentone, and was their escort again and again
+when they visited the great war-ships as they lay at anchor in a bay
+which in its translucent blue was like an enormous sapphire.
+
+Mrs. Page and her daughter were included in these parties more than
+once; but there was something in Mrs. Ashe's cool appropriation of her
+brother which was infinitely vexatious to Lilly, who before her
+arrival had rather looked upon Lieutenant Worthington as her own
+especial property.
+
+"I wish _that_ Mrs. Ashe had stayed at home," she told her mother. "She
+quite spoils everything. Mr. Worthington isn't half so nice as he was
+before she came. I do believe she has a plan for making him fall in love
+with Katy; but there she makes a miss of it, for he doesn't seem to care
+anything about her."
+
+"Katy is a nice girl enough," pronounced her mother, "but not of the
+sort to attract a gay young man, I should fancy. I don't believe _she_
+is thinking of any such thing. You needn't be afraid, Lilly."
+
+"I'm not afraid," said Lilly, with a pout; "only it's so provoking."
+
+Mrs. Page was quite right. Katy was not thinking of any such thing. She
+liked Ned Worthington's frank manners; she owned, quite honestly, that
+she thought him handsome, and she particularly admired the sort of
+deferential affection which he showed to Mrs. Ashe, and his nice ways
+with Amy. For herself, she was aware that he scarcely noticed her except
+as politeness demanded that he should be civil to his sister's friend;
+but the knowledge did not trouble her particularly. Her head was full of
+interesting things, plans, ideas. She was not accustomed to being made
+the object of admiration, and experienced none of the vexations of a
+neglected belle. If Lieutenant Worthington happened to talk to her, she
+responded frankly and freely; if he did not, she occupied herself with
+something else; in either case she was quite unembarrassed both in
+feeling and manner, and had none of the awkwardness which comes from
+disappointed vanity and baffled expectations, and the need for
+concealing them.
+
+Toward the close of December the officers of the flag-ship gave a ball,
+which was the great event of the season to the gay world of Nice.
+Americans were naturally in the ascendant on an American frigate; and of
+all the American girls present, Lilly Page was unquestionably the
+prettiest. Exquisitely dressed in white lace, with bands of turquoises
+on her neck and arms and in her hair, she had more partners than she
+knew what to do with, more bouquets than she could well carry, and
+compliments enough to turn any girl's head. Thrown off her guard by her
+triumphs, she indulged a little vindictive feeling which had been
+growing in her mind of late on account of what she chose to consider
+certain derelictions of duty on the part of Lieutenant Worthington, and
+treated him to a taste of neglect. She was engaged three deep when he
+asked her to dance; she did not hear when he invited her to walk; she
+turned a cold shoulder when he tried to talk, and seemed absorbed by the
+other cavaliers, naval and otherwise, who crowded about her.
+
+Piqued and surprised, Ned Worthington turned to Katy. She did not dance,
+saying frankly that she did not know how and was too tall; and she was
+rather simply dressed in a pearl-gray silk, which had been her best gown
+the winter before in Burnet, with a bunch of red roses in the white lace
+of the tucker, and another in her hand, both the gifts of little Amy;
+but she looked pleasant and serene, and there was something about her
+which somehow soothed his disturbed mind, as he offered her his arm for
+a walk on the decks.
+
+For a while they said little, and Katy was quite content to pace up and
+down in silence, enjoying the really beautiful scene,--the moonlight on
+the Bay, the deep wavering reflections of the dark hulls and slender
+spars, the fairy effect of the colored lamps and lanterns, and the
+brilliant moving maze of the dancers.
+
+"Do you care for this sort of thing?" he suddenly asked.
+
+"What sort of thing do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, all this jigging and waltzing and amusement."
+
+"I don't know how to 'jig,' but it's delightful to look on," she
+answered merrily. "I never saw anything so pretty in my life."
+
+The happy tone of her voice and the unruffled face which she turned upon
+him quieted his irritation.
+
+"I really believe you mean it," he said; "and yet, if you won't think me
+rude to say so, most girls would consider the thing dull enough if they
+were only getting out of it what you are,--if they were not dancing, I
+mean, and nobody in particular was trying to entertain them."
+
+"But everything _is_ being done to entertain me," cried Katy. "I can't
+imagine what makes you think that it could seem dull. I am in it all,
+don't you see,--I have my share--. Oh, I am stupid, I can't make you
+understand."
+
+"Yes, you do. I understand perfectly, I think; only it is such a
+different point of view from what girls in general would take." (By
+girls he meant Lilly!) "Please do not think me uncivil."
+
+"You are not uncivil at all; but don't let us talk any more about me.
+Look at the lights between the shadows of the masts on the water. How
+they quiver! I never saw anything so beautiful, I think. And how warm it
+is! I can't believe that we are in December and that it is nearly
+Christmas."
+
+"How is Polly going to celebrate her Christmas? Have you decided?"
+
+"Amy is to have a Christmas-tree for her dolls, and two other dolls are
+coming. We went out this morning to buy things for it,--tiny little toys
+and candles fit for Lilliput. And that reminds me, do you suppose one
+can get any Christmas greens here?"
+
+"Why not? The place seems full of green."
+
+"That's just it; the summer look makes it unnatural. But I should like
+some to dress the parlor with if they could be had."
+
+"I'll see what I can find, and send you a load."
+
+I don't know why this very simple little talk should have made an
+impression on Lieutenant Worthington's mind, but somehow he did not
+forget it.
+
+"'Don't let us talk any more about me,'" he said to himself that night
+when alone in his cabin. "I wonder how long it would be before the other
+one did anything to divert the talk from herself. Some time, I fancy."
+He smiled rather grimly as he unbuckled his sword-belt. It is unlucky
+for a girl when she starts a train of reflection like this. Lilly's
+little attempt to pique her admirer had somehow missed its mark.
+
+The next afternoon Katy in her favorite place on the beach was at work
+on the long weekly letter which she never failed to send home to Burnet.
+She held her portfolio in her lap, and her pen ran rapidly over the
+paper, as rapidly almost as her tongue would have run could her
+correspondents have been brought nearer.
+
+
+    "Nice, December 22.
+
+    "Dear Papa and everybody,--Amy and I are sitting on my old purple
+    cloak, which is spread over the sand just where it was spread the
+    last time I wrote you. We are playing the following game: I am a
+    fairy and she is a little girl. Another fairy--not sitting on the
+    cloak at present--has enchanted the little girl, and I am telling
+    her various ways by which she can work out her deliverance. At
+    present the task is to find twenty-four dull red pebbles of the same
+    color, failing to do which she is to be changed into an owl. When we
+    began to play, I was the wicked fairy; but Amy objected to that
+    because I am 'so nice,' so we changed the characters. I wish you
+    could see the glee in her pretty gray eyes over this infantile game,
+    into which she has thrown herself so thoroughly that she half
+    believes in it. 'But I needn't really be changed into an owl! 'she
+    says, with a good deal of anxiety in her voice.
+
+    "To think that you are shivering in the first snow-storm, or sending
+    the children out with their sleds and india-rubbers to slide! How I
+    wish instead that you were sharing the purple cloak with Amy and me,
+    and could sit all this warm balmy afternoon close to the surf-line
+    which fringes this bluest of blue seas! There is plenty of room for
+    you all. Not many people come down to this end of the beach, and if
+    you were very good we would let you play.
+
+    "Our life here goes on as delightfully as ever. Nice is very full of
+    people, and there seem to be some pleasant ones among them. Here at
+    the Pension Suisse we do not see a great many Americans. The
+    fellow-boarders are principally Germans and Austrians with a
+    sprinkling of French. (Amy has found her twenty-four red pebbles, so
+    she is let off from being an owl. She is now engaged in throwing
+    them one by one into the sea. Each must hit the water under penalty
+    of her being turned into a Muscovy duck. She doesn't know exactly
+    what a Muscovy duck is, which makes her all the more particular
+    about her shots.) But, as I was saying, our little _suite_ in the
+    round tower is so on one side of the rest of the Pension that it is
+    as good as having a house of our own. The _salon_ is very bright and
+    sunny; we have two sofas and a square table and a round table and a
+    sort of what-not and two easy-chairs and two uneasy chairs and a
+    lamp of our own and a clock. There is also a sofa-pillow. There's
+    richness for you! We have pinned up all our photographs on the
+    walls, including Papa's and Clovy's and that bad one of Phil and
+    Johnnie making faces at each other, and three lovely red and yellow
+    Japanese pictures on muslin which Rose Red put in my trunk the last
+    thing, for a spot of color. There are some autumn leaves too; and we
+    always have flowers and in the mornings and evenings a fire.
+
+    "Amy is now finding fifty snow-white pebbles, which when found are
+    to be interred in one common grave among the shingle. If she fails
+    to do this, she is to be changed to an electrical eel. The chief
+    difficulty is that she loses her heart to particular pebbles. 'I
+    can't bury you,' I hear her saying.
+
+    "To return,--we have jolly little breakfasts together in the
+    _salon_. They consist of coffee and rolls, and are served by a
+    droll, snappish little _garçon_ with no teeth, and an Italian-French
+    patois which is very hard to understand when he sputters. He told me
+    the other day that he had been a _garçon_ for forty-six years, which
+    seemed rather a long boyhood.
+
+    "The company, as we meet them at table, are rather entertaining.
+    Cousin Olivia and Lilly are on their best behavior to me because I
+    am travelling with Mrs. Ashe, and Mrs. Ashe is Lieutenant
+    Worthington's sister, and Lieutenant Worthington is Lilly's admirer,
+    and they like him very much. In fact, Lilly has intimated
+    confidentially that she is all but engaged to him; but I am not sure
+    about it, or if that was what she meant; and I fear, if it proves
+    true, that dear Polly will not like it at all. She is quite
+    unmanageable, and snubs Lilly continually in a polite way, which
+    makes me fidgety for fear Lilly will be offended, but she never
+    seems to notice it. Cousin Olivia looks very handsome and gorgeous.
+    She quite takes the color out of the little Russian Countess who
+    sits next to her, and who is as dowdy and meek as if she came from
+    Akron or Binghampton, or any other place where countesses are
+    unknown. Then there are two charming, well-bred young Austrians. The
+    one who sits nearest to me is a 'Candidat' for a Doctorate of Laws,
+    and speaks eight languages well. He has only studied English for the
+    past six weeks, but has made wonderful progress. I wish my French
+    were half as good as his English is already.
+
+    "There is a very gossiping young woman on the story beneath ours,
+    whom I meet sometimes in the garden, and from her I hear all manner
+    of romantic tales about people in the house. One little French girl
+    is dying of consumption and a broken heart, because of a quarrel
+    with her lover, who is a courier; and the _padrona_, who is young
+    and pretty, and has only been married a few months to our elderly
+    landlord, has a story also. I forget some of the details; but there
+    was a stern parent and an admirer, and a cup of cold poison, and now
+    she says she wishes she were dying of consumption like poor
+    Alphonsine. For all that, she looks quite fat and rosy, and I often
+    see her in her best gown with a great deal of Roman scarf and mosaic
+    jewelry, stationed in the doorway, 'making the Pension look
+    attractive to the passers-by.' So she has a sense of duty, though
+    she is unhappy.
+
+    "Amy has buried all her pebbles, and says she is tired of playing
+    fairy. She is now sitting with her head on my shoulder, and
+    professedly studying her French verb for to-morrow, but in reality,
+    I am sorry to say, she is conversing with me about be-headings,--a
+    subject which, since her visit to the Tower, has exercised a
+    horrible fascination over her mind. 'Do people die right away?' she
+    asks. 'Don't they feel one minute, and doesn't it feel awfully?'
+    There is a good deal of blood, she supposes, because there was so
+    much straw laid about the block in the picture of Lady Jane Gray's
+    execution, which enlivened our walls in Paris. On the whole, I am
+    rather glad that a fat little white dog has come waddling down the
+    beach and taken off her attention.
+
+    "Speaking of Paris seems to renew the sense of fog which we had
+    there. Oh, how enchanting sunshine is after weeks of gloom! I shall
+    never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first,--all
+    blue, and such a lovely color. There ought, according to Morse's
+    Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we
+    were, but I didn't see any. Perhaps they letter it so far out from
+    shore that only people in boats notice it.
+
+    "Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these
+    warm afternoons begins to be felt. Amy has received a message
+    written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect--"
+
+Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel
+behind her.
+
+"Good afternoon," said a voice. "Polly has sent me to fetch you and Amy
+in. She says it is growing cool."
+
+"We were just coming," said Katy, beginning to put away her papers.
+
+Ned Worthington sat down on the cloak beside her. The distance was now
+steel gray against the sky; then came a stripe of violet, and then a
+broad sheet of the vivid iridescent blue which one sees on the necks of
+peacocks, which again melted into the long line of flashing surf.
+
+"See that gull," he said, "how it drops plumb into the sea, as if bound
+to go through to China!"
+
+"Mrs. Hawthorne calls skylarks 'little raptures,'" replied Katy.
+"Sea-gulls seem to me like grown-up raptures."
+
+"Are you going?" said Lieutenant Worthington in a tone of surprise,
+as she rose.
+
+"Didn't you say that Polly wanted us to come in?"
+
+"Why, yes; but it seems too good to leave, doesn't it? Oh, by the way,
+Miss Carr, I came across a man to-day and ordered your greens. They will
+be sent on Christmas Eve. Is that right?"
+
+"Quite right, and we are ever so much obliged to you." She turned for a
+last look at the sea, and, unseen by Ned Worthington, formed her lips
+into a "good-night." Katy had made great friends with the Mediterranean.
+
+The promised "greens" appeared on the afternoon before Christmas Day, in
+the shape of an enormous fagot of laurel and laurestinus and holly and
+box; orange and lemon boughs with ripe fruit hanging from them, thick
+ivy tendrils whole yards long, arbutus, pepper tree, and great branches
+of acacia, covered with feathery yellow bloom. The man apologized for
+bringing so little. The gentleman had ordered two francs worth, he said,
+but this was all he could carry; he would fetch some more if the young
+lady wished! But Katy, exclaiming with delight over her wealth, wished
+no more; so the man departed, and the three friends proceeded to turn
+the little _salon_ into a fairy bower. Every photograph and picture was
+wreathed in ivy, long garlands hung on either side the windows, and the
+chimney-piece and door-frames became clustering banks of leaf and
+blossom. A great box of flowers had come with the greens, and bowls of
+fresh roses and heliotrope and carnations were set everywhere; violets
+and primroses, gold-hearted brown auriculas, spikes of veronica, all the
+zones and all the seasons, combining to make the Christmas-tide sweet,
+and to turn winter topsy-turvy in the little parlor.
+
+Mabel and Mary Matilda, with their two doll visitors, sat gravely round
+the table, in the laps of their little mistresses; and Katy, putting on
+an apron and an improvised cap, and speaking Irish very fast, served
+them with a repast of rolls and cocoa, raspberry jam, and delicious
+little almond cakes. The fun waxed fast and furious; and Lieutenant
+Worthington, coming in with his hands full of parcels for the
+Christmas-tree, was just in time to hear Katy remark in a strong County
+Kerry brogue,--
+
+"Och, thin indade, Miss Amy, and it's no more cake you'll be getting out
+of me the night. That's four pieces you've ate, and it's little slape
+your poor mother'll git with you a tossin' and tumblin' forenenst her
+all night long because of your big appetite."
+
+"Oh, Miss Katy, talk Irish some more!" cried the delighted children.
+
+"Is it Irish you'd be afther having me talk, when it's me own langwidge,
+and sorrow a bit of another do I know?" demanded Katy. Then she caught
+sight of the new arrival and stopped short with a blush and a laugh.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Worthington," she said; "we're at supper, as you see, and
+I am acting as waitress."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Ned, please go away," pleaded Amy, "or Katy will be polite,
+and not talk Irish any more."
+
+"Indade, and the less ye say about politeness the betther, when ye're
+afther ordering the jantleman out of the room in that fashion!" said the
+waitress. Then she pulled off her cap and untied her apron.
+
+"Now for the Christmas-tree," she said.
+
+It was a very little tree, but it bore some remarkable fruits; for in
+addition to the "tiny toys and candles fit for Lilliput," various
+parcels were found to have been hastily added at the last moment for
+various people. The "Natchitoches" had lately come from the Levant, and
+delightful Oriental confections now appeared for Amy and Mrs. Ashe;
+Turkish slippers, all gold embroidery; towels, with richly decorated
+ends in silks and tinsel;--all the pretty superfluities which the East
+holds out to charm gold from the pockets of her Western visitors. A
+pretty little dagger in agate and silver fell to Katy's share out of
+what Lieutenant Worthington called his "loot;" and beside, a most
+beautiful specimen of the inlaid work for which Nice is famous,--a
+looking-glass, with a stand and little doors to close it in,--which was
+a present from Mrs. Ashe. It was quite unlike a Christmas Eve at home,
+but altogether delightful; and as Katy sat next morning on the sand,
+after the service in the English church, to finish her home letter, and
+felt the sun warm on her cheek, and the perfumed air blow past as softly
+as in June, she had to remind herself that Christmas is not necessarily
+synonymous with snow and winter, but means the great central heat and
+warmth, the advent of Him who came to lighten the whole earth.
+
+A few days after this pleasant Christmas they left Nice. All of them
+felt a reluctance to move, and Amy loudly bewailed the necessity.
+
+"If I could stay here till it is time to go home, I shouldn't be
+homesick at all," she declared.
+
+"But what a pity it would be not to see Italy!" said her mother. "Think
+of Naples and Rome and Venice."
+
+"I don't want to think about them. It makes me feel as if I was studying
+a great long geography lesson, and it tires me so to learn it."
+
+"Amy, dear, you're not well."
+
+"Yes, I am,--quite well; only I don't want to go away from Nice."
+
+"You only have to learn a little bit at a time of your geography lesson,
+you know," suggested Katy; "and it's a great deal nicer way to study it
+than out of a book." But though she spoke cheerfully she was conscious
+that she shared Amy's reluctance.
+
+"It's all laziness," she told herself. "Nice has been so pleasant that
+it has spoiled me."
+
+It was a consolation and made going easier that they were to drive over
+the famous Cornice Road as far as San Remo, instead of going to Genoa
+by rail as most travellers now-a-days do. They departed from the
+Pension Suisse early on an exquisite morning, fair and balmy as June,
+but with a little zest and sparkle of coolness in the air which made it
+additionally delightful. The Mediterranean was of the deepest
+violet-blue; a sort of bloom of color seemed to lie upon it. The sky
+was like an arch of turquoise; every cape and headland shone jewel-like
+in the golden sunshine. The carriage, as it followed the windings of
+the road cut shelf-like on the cliffs, seemed poised between earth and
+heaven; the sea below, the mountain summits above, with a fairy world
+of verdure between. The journey was like a dream of enchantment and
+rapidly changing surprises; and when it ended in a quaint hostelry at
+San Remo, with palm-trees feathering the Bordighera Point and Corsica,
+for once seen by day, lying in bold, clear outlines against the sunset,
+Katy had to admit to herself that Nice, much as she loved it, was not
+the only, not even the most beautiful place in Europe. Already she felt
+her horizon growing, her convictions changing; and who should say what
+lay beyond?
+
+The next day brought them to Genoa, to a hotel once the stately palace
+of an archbishop, where they were lodged, all three together, in an
+enormous room, so high and broad and long that their three little
+curtained beds set behind a screen of carved wood made no impression on
+the space. There were not less than four sofas and double that number of
+arm-chairs in the room, besides a couple of monumental wardrobes; but,
+as Katy remarked, several grand pianos could still have been moved in
+without anybody's feeling crowded. On one side of them lay the port of
+Genoa, filled with craft from all parts of the world, and flying the
+flags of a dozen different nations. From the other they caught glimpses
+of the magnificent old city, rising in tier over tier of churches and
+palaces and gardens; while nearer still were narrow streets, which
+glittered with gold filigree and the shops of jewel-workers. And while
+they went in and out and gazed and wondered, Lilly Page, at the Pension
+Suisse, was saying,--
+
+"I am so glad that Katy and _that_ Mrs. Ashe are gone. Nothing has been
+so pleasant since they came. Lieutenant Worthington is dreadfully stiff
+and stupid, and seems quite different from what he used to be. But now
+that we have got rid of them it will all come right again."
+
+"I really don't think that Katy was to blame," said Mrs. Page. "She
+never seemed to me to be making any effort to attract him."
+
+"Oh, Katy is sly," responded Lilly, vindictively. "She never _seems_ to
+do anything, but somehow she always gets her own way. I suppose she
+thought I didn't see her keeping him down there on the beach the other
+day when he was coming in to call on us, but I did. It was just out of
+spite, and because she wanted to vex me; I know it was."
+
+"Well, dear, she's gone now, and you won't be worried with her again,"
+said her mother, soothingly. "Don't pout so, Lilly, and wrinkle up your
+forehead. It's very unbecoming."
+
+"Yes, she's gone," snapped Lilly; "and as she's bound for the East, and
+we for the West, we are not likely to meet again, for which I am
+devoutly thankful."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES.
+
+
+"We are going to follow the track of Ulysses," said Katy, with her eyes
+fixed on the little travelling-map in her guide-book. "Do you realize
+that, Polly dear? He and his companions sailed these very seas before
+us, and we shall see the sights they saw,--Circe's Cape and the Isles of
+the Sirens, and Polyphemus himself, perhaps, who knows?"
+
+The "Marco Polo" had just cast off her moorings, and was slowly steaming
+out of the crowded port of Genoa into the heart of a still rosy sunset.
+The water was perfectly smooth; no motion could be felt but the engine's
+throb. The trembling foam of the long wake showed glancing points of
+phosphorescence here and there, while low on the eastern sky a great
+silver planet burned like a signal lamp.
+
+"Polyphemus was a horrible giant. I read about him once, and I don't
+want to see him," observed Amy, from her safe protected perch in her
+mother's lap.
+
+"He may not be so bad now as he was in those old times. Some missionary
+may have come across him and converted him. If he were good, you
+wouldn't mind his being big, would you?" suggested Katy.
+
+"N-o," replied Amy, doubtfully; "but it would take a great lot of
+missionaries to make _him_ good, I should think. One all alone would be
+afraid to speak to him. We shan't really see him, shall we?"
+
+"I don't believe we shall; and if we stuff cotton in our ears and look
+the other way, we need not hear the sirens sing," said Katy, who was in
+the highest spirits.--"And oh, Polly dear, there is one delightful thing
+I forgot to tell you about. The captain says he shall stay in Leghorn
+all day to-morrow taking on freight, and we shall have plenty of time to
+run up to Pisa and see the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and
+everything else. Now, that is something Ulysses didn't do! I am so glad
+I didn't die of measles when I was little, as Rose Red used to say." She
+gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke, and caught it again as
+it fell, very much as the Katy Carr of twelve years ago might have done.
+
+"What a child you are!" said Mrs. Ashe, approvingly; "you never seem out
+of sorts or tired of things."
+
+"Out of sorts? I should think not! And pray why should I be,
+Polly dear?"
+
+Katy had taken to calling her friend "Polly dear" of late,--a trick
+picked up half unconsciously from Lieutenant Ned. Mrs. Ashe liked it;
+it was sisterly and intimate, she said, and made her feel nearer
+Katy's age.
+
+"Does the tower really lean?" questioned Amy,--"far over, I mean, so
+that we can see it?"
+
+"We shall know to-morrow," replied Katy. "If it doesn't, I shall lose
+all my confidence in human nature."
+
+Katy's confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired. There
+stood the famous tower, when they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa,
+next morning, looking all aslant, exactly as it does in the pictures and
+the alabaster models, and seeming as if in another moment it must topple
+over, from its own weight, upon their heads. Mrs. Ashe declared that it
+was so unnatural that it made her flesh creep; and when she was coaxed
+up the winding staircase to the top, she turned so giddy that they were
+all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again. She turned her
+back upon the tower, as they crossed the grassy space to the majestic
+old Cathedral, saying that if she thought about it any more, she should
+become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation, which she had
+always been told all respectable people _must_ believe in.
+
+The guide showed them the lamp swinging by a long slender chain, before
+which Galileo is said to have sat and pondered while he worked out his
+theory of the pendulum. This lamp seemed a sort of own cousin to the
+attraction of gravitation, and they gazed upon it with respect. Then
+they went to the Baptistery to see Niccolo Pisano's magnificent pulpit
+of creamy marble, a mass of sculpture supported on the backs of lions,
+and the equally lovely font, and to admire the extraordinary sound
+which their guide evoked from a mysterious echo, with which he seemed
+to be on intimate terms, for he made it say whatever he would and
+almost "answer back."
+
+It was in coming out of the Baptistery that they met with an adventure
+which Amy could never quite forget. Pisa is the mendicant city of Italy,
+and her streets are infested with a band of religious beggars who call
+themselves the Brethren of the Order of Mercy. They wear loose black
+gowns, sandals laced over their bare feet, and black cambric masks with
+holes, through which their eyes glare awfully; and they carry tin cups
+for the reception of offerings, which they thrust into the faces of all
+strangers visiting the city, whom they look upon as their lawful prey.
+
+As our party emerged from the Baptistery, two of these Brethren espied
+them, and like great human bats came swooping down upon them with long
+strides, their black garments flying in the wind, their eyes rolling
+strangely behind their masks, and brandishing their alms-cups, which had
+"Pour les Pauvres" lettered upon them, and gave forth a clapping sound
+like a watchman's rattle. There was something terrible in their
+appearance and the rushing speed of their movements. Amy screamed and
+ran behind her mother, who visibly shrank. Katy stood her ground; but
+the bat-winged fiends in Doré's illustrations to Dante occurred to her,
+and her fingers trembled as she dropped some money in the cups.
+
+Even mendicant friars are human. Katy ceased to tremble as she observed
+that one of them, as he retreated, walked backward for some distance in
+order to gaze longer at Mrs. Ashe, whose cheeks were flushed with bright
+pink and who was looking particularly handsome. She began to laugh
+instead, and Mrs. Ashe laughed too; but Amy could not get over the
+impression of having been attacked by demons, and often afterward
+recurred with a shudder to the time when those awful black _things_ flew
+at her and she hid behind mamma. The ghastly pictures of the Triumph of
+Death, which were presently exhibited to them on the walls of the Campo
+Santo, did not tend to reassure her, and it was with quite a pale,
+scared little face that she walked toward the hotel where they were to
+lunch, and she held fast to Katy's hand.
+
+Their way led them through a narrow street inhabited by the poorer
+classes,--a dusty street with high shabby buildings on either side and
+wide doorways giving glimpses of interior courtyards, where empty
+hogsheads and barrels and rusty caldrons lay, and great wooden trays of
+macaroni were spread out in the sun to dry. Some of the macaroni was
+gray, some white, some yellow; none of it looked at all desirable to
+eat, as it lay exposed to the dust, with long lines of ill-washed
+clothes flapping above on wires stretched from one house to another. As
+is usual in poor streets, there were swarms of children; and the
+appearance of little Amy with her long bright hair falling over her
+shoulders and Mabel clasped in her arms created a great sensation. The
+children in the street shouted and exclaimed, and other children within
+the houses heard the sounds and came trooping out, while mothers and
+older sisters peeped from the doorways. The very air seemed full of
+eager faces and little brown and curly heads bobbing up and down with
+excitement, and black eyes all fixed upon big beautiful Mabel, who with
+her thick wig of flaxen hair, her blue velvet dress and jacket,
+feathered hat, and little muff, seemed to them like some strange small
+marvel from another world. They could not decide whether she was a
+living child or a make-believe one, and they dared not come near enough
+to find out; so they clustered at a little distance, pointed with their
+fingers, and whispered and giggled, while Amy, much pleased with the
+admiration shown for her darling, lifted Mabel up to view.
+
+At last one droll little girl with a white cap on her round head seemed
+to make up _her_ mind, and darting indoors returned with her doll,--a
+poor little image of wood, its only garment a coarse shirt of red
+cotton. This she held out for Amy to see. Amy smiled for the first time
+since her encounter with the bat-like friars; and Katy, taking Mabel
+from her, made signs that the two dolls should kiss each other. But
+though the little Italian screamed with laughter at the idea of a
+_bacio_ between two dolls, she would by no means allow it, and hid her
+treasure behind her back, blushing and giggling, and saying something
+very fast which none of them understood, while she waved two fingers at
+them with a curious gesture.
+
+"I do believe she is afraid Mabel will cast the evil eye on her doll,"
+said Katy at last, with a sudden understanding as to what this
+pantomime meant.
+
+"Why, you silly thing!" cried the outraged Amy; "do you suppose for one
+moment that my child could hurt your dirty old dolly? You ought to be
+glad to have her noticed at all by anybody that's clean."
+
+The sound of the foreign tongue completed the discomfiture of the
+little Italian. With a shriek she fled, and all the other children
+after her; pausing at a distance to look back at the alarming creatures
+who didn't speak the familiar language. Katy, wishing to leave a
+pleasant impression, made Mabel kiss her waxen fingers toward them.
+This sent the children off into another fit of laughter and chatter,
+and they followed our friends for quite a distance as they proceeded on
+their way to the hotel.
+
+All that night, over a sea as smooth as glass, the "Marco Polo" slipped
+along the coasts past which the ships of Ulysses sailed in those old
+legendary days which wear so charmed a light to our modern eyes. Katy
+roused at three in the morning, and looking from her cabin window had a
+glimpse of an island, which her map showed her must be Elba, where that
+war-eagle Napoleon was chained for a while. Then she fell asleep again,
+and when she roused in full daylight the steamer was off the coast of
+Ostia and nearing the mouth of the Tiber. Dreamy mountain-shapes rose
+beyond the far-away Campagna, and every curve and indentation of the
+coast bore a name which recalled some interesting thing.
+
+About eleven a dim-drawn bubble appeared on the horizon, which the
+captain assured them was the dome of St. Peter's, nearly thirty miles
+distant. This was one of the "moments" which Clover had been fond of
+speculating about; and Katy, contrasting the real with the imaginary
+moment, could not help smiling. Neither she nor Clover had ever supposed
+that her first glimpse of the great dome was to be so little impressive.
+
+On and on they went till the air-hung bubble disappeared; and Amy, grown
+very tired of scenery with which she had no associations, and grown-up
+raptures which she did not comprehend, squeezed herself into the end of
+the long wooden settee on which Katy sat, and began to beg for another
+story concerning Violet and Emma.
+
+"Just a little tiny chapter, you know, Miss Katy, about what they did on
+New Year's Day or something. It's so dull to keep sailing and sailing
+all day and have nothing to do, and it's ever so long since you told me
+anything about them, really and truly it is!"
+
+Now, Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the
+bane of Katy's existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful
+adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till
+her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of
+moisture had been squeezed. Amy was insatiable. Her interest in the tale
+never flagged; and when her exhausted friend explained that she really
+could not think of another word to say on the subject, she would turn
+the tables by asking, "Then, Miss Katy, mayn't I tell _you_ a chapter?"
+whereupon she would proceed somewhat in this fashion:--
+
+"It was the day before Christmas--no, we won't have it the day before
+Christmas; it shall be three days before Thanksgiving. Violet and Emma
+got up in the morning, and--well, they didn't do anything in particular
+that day. They just had their breakfasts and dinners, and played and
+studied a little, and went to bed early, you know, and the next morning
+--well, there didn't much happen that day, either; they just had their
+breakfasts and dinners, and played."
+
+Listening to Amy's stories was so much worse than telling them to her,
+that Katy in self-defence was driven to recommence her narrations, but
+she had grown to hate Violet and Emma with a deadly hatred. So when Amy
+made this appeal on the steamer's deck, a sudden resolution took
+possession of her, and she decided to put an end to these dreadful
+children once for all.
+
+"Yes, Amy," she said, "I will tell you one more story about Violet and
+Emma; but this is positively the last."
+
+So Amy cuddled close to her friend, and listened with rapt attention as
+Katy told how on a certain day just before the New Year, Violet and Emma
+started by themselves in a little sleigh drawn by a pony, to carry to a
+poor woman who lived in a lonely house high up on a mountain slope a
+basket containing a turkey, a mould of cranberry jelly, a bunch of
+celery, and a mince-pie.
+
+"They were so pleased at having all these nice things to take to poor
+widow Simpson and in thinking how glad she would be to see them,"
+proceeded the naughty Katy, "that they never noticed how black the sky
+was getting to be, or how the wind howled through the bare boughs of the
+trees. They had to go slowly, for the road was up hill all the way, and
+it was hard work for the poor pony. But he was a stout little fellow,
+and tugged away up the slippery track, and Violet and Emma talked and
+laughed, and never thought what was going to happen. Just half-way up
+the mountain there was a rocky cliff which overhung the road, and on
+this cliff grew an enormous hemlock tree. The branches were loaded with
+snow, which made them much heavier than usual. Just as the sleigh passed
+slowly underneath the cliff, a violent blast of wind blew up from the
+ravine, struck the hemlock and tore it out of the ground, roots and all.
+It fell directly across the sleigh, and Violet and Emma and the pony and
+the basket with the turkey and the other things in it were all crushed
+as flat as pancakes!"
+
+"Well," said Amy, as Katy stopped, "go on! what happened then?"
+
+"Nothing happened then," replied Katy, in a tone of awful solemnity;
+"nothing could happen! Violet and Emma were dead, the pony was dead, the
+things in the basket were broken all to little bits, and a great
+snowstorm began and covered them up, and no one knew where they were or
+what had become of them till the snow melted in the spring."
+
+With a loud shriek Amy jumped up from the bench.
+
+"No! no! no!" she cried; "they aren't dead! I won't let them be dead!"
+Then she burst into tears, ran down the stairs, locked herself into her
+mother's stateroom, and did not appear again for several hours.
+
+Katy laughed heartily at first over this outburst, but presently she
+began to repent and to think that she had treated her pet unkindly. She
+went down and knocked at the stateroom door; but Amy would not answer.
+She called her softly through the key-hole, and coaxed and pleaded, but
+it was all in vain. Amy remained invisible till late in the afternoon;
+and when she finally crept up again to the deck, her eyes were red with
+crying, and her little face as pale and miserable as if she had been
+attending the funeral of her dearest friend.
+
+Katy's heart smote her.
+
+"Come here, my darling," she said, holding out her hand; "come and sit
+in my lap and forgive me. Violet and Emma shall not be dead. They shall
+go on living, since you care so much for them, and I will tell stories
+about them to the end of the chapter."
+
+"No," said Amy, shaking her head mournfully; "you can't. They're dead,
+and they won't come to life again ever. It's all over, and I'm so
+so-o-rry."
+
+All Katy's apologies and efforts to resuscitate the story were useless.
+Violet and Emma were dead to Amy's imagination, and she could not make
+herself believe in them any more.
+
+She was too woe-begone to care for the fables of Circe and her swine
+which Katy told as they rounded the magnificent Cape Circello, and the
+isles where the sirens used to sing appealed to her in vain. The sun
+set, the stars came out; and under the beams of their countless lamps
+and the beckonings of a slender new moon, the "Marco Polo" sailed into
+the Bay of Naples, past Vesuvius, whose dusky curl of smoke could be
+seen outlined against the luminous sky, and brought her passengers to
+their landing-place.
+
+They woke next morning to a summer atmosphere full of yellow sunshine
+and true July warmth. Flower-vendors stood on every corner, and pursued
+each newcomer with their fragrant wares. Katy could not stop exclaiming
+over the cheapness of the flowers, which were thrust in at the carriage
+windows as they drove slowly up and down the streets. They were tied
+into flat nosegays, whose centre was a white camellia, encircled with
+concentric rows of pink tea rosebuds, ring after ring, till the whole
+was the size of an ordinary milk-pan; all to be had for the sum of ten
+cents! But after they had bought two or three of these enormous
+bouquets, and had discovered that not a single rose boasted an inch of
+stem, and that all were pierced with long wires through their very
+hearts, she ceased to care for them.
+
+"I would rather have one Souvenir or General Jacqueminot, with a long
+stem and plenty of leaves, than a dozen of these stiff platters of
+bouquets," Katy told Mrs. Ashe. But when they drove beyond the city
+gates, and the coachman came to anchor beneath walls overhung with the
+same roses, and she found that she might stand on the seat and pull down
+as many branches of the lovely flowers as she desired, and gather
+wallflowers for herself out of the clefts in the masonry, she was
+entirely satisfied.
+
+"This is the Italy of my dreams," she said.
+
+With all its beauty there was an underlying sense of danger about
+Naples, which interfered with their enjoyment of it. Evil smells came
+in at the windows, or confronted them as they went about the city.
+There seemed something deadly in the air. Whispered reports met their
+ears of cases of fever, which the landlords of the hotels were doing
+their best to hush up. An American gentleman was said to be lying very
+ill at one house. A lady had died the week before at another. Mrs. Ashe
+grew nervous.
+
+"We will just take a rapid look at a few of the principal things," she
+told Katy, "and then get away as fast as we can. Amy is so on my mind
+that I have no peace of my life. I keep feeling her pulse and imagining
+that she does not look right; and though I know it is all my fancy, I am
+impatient to be off. You won't mind, will you, Katy?"
+
+After that everything they did was done in a hurry. Katy felt as if she
+were being driven about by a cyclone, as they rushed from one sight to
+another, filling up all the chinks between with shopping, which was
+irresistible where everything was so pretty and so wonderfully cheap.
+She herself purchased a tortoise-shell fan and chain for Rose Red, and
+had her monogram carved upon it; a coral locket for Elsie; some studs
+for Dorry; and for her father a small, beautiful vase of bronze, copied
+from one of the Pompeian antiques.
+
+"How charming it is to have money to spend in such a place as this!" she
+said to herself with a sigh of satisfaction as she surveyed these
+delightful buyings. "I only wish I could get ten times as many things
+and take them to ten times as many people. Papa was so wise about it. I
+can't think how it is that he always knows beforehand exactly how people
+are going to feel, and what they will want!"
+
+Mrs. Ashe also bought a great many things for herself and Amy, and to
+take home as presents; and it was all very pleasant and satisfactory
+except for that subtle sense of danger from which they could not escape
+and which made them glad to go. "See Naples and die," says the old
+adage; and the saying has proved sadly true in the case of many an
+American traveller.
+
+Beside the talk of fever there was also a good deal of gossip about
+brigands going about, as is generally the case in Naples and its
+vicinity. Something was said to have happened to a party on one of the
+heights above Sorrento; and though nobody knew exactly what the
+something was, or was willing to vouch for the story, Mrs. Ashe and
+Katy felt a good deal of trepidation as they entered the carriage which
+was to take them to the neighborhood where the mysterious "something"
+had occurred.
+
+The drive between Castellamare and Sorrento is in reality as safe as
+that between Boston and Brookline; but as our party did not know this
+fact till afterward, it did them no good. It is also one of the most
+beautiful drives in the world, following the windings of the exquisite
+coast mile after mile, in long links of perfectly made road, carved on
+the face of sharp cliffs, with groves of oranges and lemons and olive
+orchards above, and the Bay of Naples beneath, stretching away like a
+solid sheet of lapis-lazuli, and gemmed with islands of the most
+picturesque form.
+
+It is a pity that so much beauty should have been wasted on Mrs. Ashe
+and Katy, but they were too frightened to half enjoy it. Their carriage
+was driven by a shaggy young savage, who looked quite wild enough to be
+a bandit himself. He cracked his whip loudly as they rolled along, and
+every now and then gave a long shrill whistle. Mrs. Ashe was sure that
+these were signals to his band, who were lurking somewhere on the
+olive-hung hillsides. She thought she detected him once or twice making
+signs to certain questionable-looking characters as they passed; and she
+fancied that the people they met gazed at them with an air of
+commiseration, as upon victims who were being carried to execution. Her
+fears affected Katy; so, though they talked and laughed, and made jokes
+to amuse Amy, who must not be scared or led to suppose that anything was
+amiss, and to the outward view seemed a very merry party, they were
+privately quaking in their shoes all the way, and enjoying a deal of
+highly superfluous misery. And after all they reached Sorrento in
+perfect safety; and the driver, who looked so dangerous, turned out to
+be a respectable young man enough, with a wife and family to support,
+who considered a plateful of macaroni and a glass of sour red wine as
+the height of luxury, and was grateful for a small gratuity of thirty
+cents or so, which would enable him to purchase these dainties. Mrs.
+Ashe had a very bad headache next day, to pay for her fright; but she
+and Katy agreed that they had been very foolish, and resolved to pay no
+more attention to unaccredited rumors or allow them to spoil their
+enjoyment, which was a sensible resolution to make.
+
+Their hotel was perched directly over the sea. From the balcony of their
+sitting-room they looked down a sheer cliff some sixty feet high, into
+the water; their bedrooms opened on a garden of roses, with an orange
+grove beyond. Not far from them was the great gorge which cuts the
+little town of Sorrento almost in two, and whose seaward end makes the
+harbor of the place. Katy was never tired of peering down into this
+strange and beautiful cleft, whose sides, two hundred feet in depth, are
+hung with vines and trailing growths of all sorts, and seem all
+a-tremble with the fairy fronds of maiden-hair ferns growing out of
+every chink and crevice. She and Amy took walks along the coast toward
+Massa, to look off at the lovely island shapes in the bay, and admire
+the great clumps of cactus and Spanish bayonet which grew by the
+roadside; and they always came back loaded with orange-flowers, which
+could be picked as freely as apple-blossoms from New England orchards in
+the spring. The oranges themselves at that time of the year were very
+sour, but they answered as well for a romantic date, "From an orange
+grove," as if they had been the sweetest in the world.
+
+They made two different excursions to Pompeii, which is within easy
+distance of Sorrento. They scrambled on donkeys over the hills, and had
+glimpses of the far-away Calabrian shore, of the natural arch, and the
+temples of Pæstum shining in the sun many miles distant. On Katy's
+birthday, which fell toward the end of January, Mrs. Ashe let her have
+her choice of a treat; and she elected to go to the Island of Capri,
+which none of them had seen. It turned out a perfect day, with sea and
+wind exactly right for the sail, and to allow of getting into the famous
+"Blue Grotto," which can only be entered under particular conditions of
+tide and weather. And they climbed the great cliff-rise at the island's
+end, and saw the ruins of the villa built by the wicked emperor
+Tiberius, and the awful place known as his "Leap," down which, it is
+said, he made his victims throw themselves; and they lunched at a hotel
+which bore his name, and just at sunset pushed off again for the row
+home over the charmed sea. This return voyage was almost the pleasantest
+thing of all the day. The water was smooth, the moon at its full. It was
+larger and more brilliant than American moons are, and seemed to possess
+an actual warmth and color. The boatmen timed their oar-strokes to the
+cadence of Neapolitan _barcaroles_ and folk-songs, full of rhythmic
+movement, which seemed caught from the pulsing tides. And when at last
+the bow grated on the sands of the Sorrento landing-place, Katy drew a
+long, regretful breath, and declared that this was her best
+birthday-gift of all, better than Amy's flowers, or the pretty
+tortoise-shell locket that Mrs. Ashe had given her, better even than the
+letter from home, which, timed by happy accident, had arrived by the
+morning's post to make a bright opening for the day.
+
+All pleasant things must come to an ending.
+
+"Katy," said Mrs. Ashe, one afternoon in early February, "I heard some
+ladies talking just now in the _salon_, and they said that Rome is
+filling up very fast. The Carnival begins in less than two weeks, and
+everybody wants to be there then. If we don't make haste, we shall not
+be able to get any rooms."
+
+"Oh dear!" said Katy, "it is very trying not to be able to be in two
+places at once. I want to see Rome dreadfully, and yet I cannot bear to
+leave Sorrento. We have been very happy here, haven't we?"
+
+So they took up their wandering staves again, and departed for Rome,
+like the Apostle, "not knowing what should befall them there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
+
+
+"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Ashe, as she folded her letters and laid them
+aside, "I wish those Pages would go away from Nice, or else that the
+frigates were not there."
+
+"Why! what's the matter?" asked Katy, looking up from the many-leaved
+journal from Clover over which she was poring.
+
+"Nothing is the matter except that those everlasting people haven't gone
+to Spain yet, as they said they would, and Ned seems to keep on seeing
+them," replied Mrs. Ashe, petulantly.
+
+"But, dear Polly, what difference does it make? And they never did
+promise you to go on any particular time, did they?"
+
+"N-o, they didn't; but I wish they would, all the same. Not that Ned is
+such a goose as really to care anything for that foolish Lilly!" Then
+she gave a little laugh at her own inconsistency, and added, "But I
+oughtn't to abuse her when she is your cousin."
+
+"Don't mention it," said Katy, cheerfully. "But, really, I don't see why
+poor Lilly need worry you so, Polly dear."
+
+The room in which this conversation took place was on the very topmost
+floor of the Hotel del Hondo in Rome. It was large and many-windowed;
+and though there was a little bed in one corner half hidden behind a
+calico screen, with a bureau and washing-stand, and a sort of stout
+mahogany hat-tree on which Katy's dresses and jackets were hanging, the
+remaining space, with a sofa and easy-chairs grouped round a fire, and a
+round table furnished with books and a lamp, was ample enough to make a
+good substitute for the private sitting-room which Mrs. Ashe had not
+been able to procure on account of the near approach of the Carnival and
+the consequent crowding of strangers to Rome. In fact, she was assured
+that under the circumstances she was lucky in finding rooms as good as
+these; and she made the most of the assurance as a consolation for the
+somewhat unsatisfactory food and service of the hotel, and the four long
+flights of stairs which must be passed every time they needed to reach
+the dining-room or the street door.
+
+The party had been in Rome only four days, but already they had seen a
+host of interesting things. They had stood in the strange sunken space
+with its marble floor and broken columns, which is all that is left of
+the great Roman Forum. They had visited the Coliseum, at that period
+still overhung with ivy garlands and trailing greeneries, and not, as
+now, scraped clean and bare and "tidied" out of much of its
+picturesqueness. They had seen the Baths of Caracalla and the Temple of
+Janus and St. Peter's and the Vatican marbles, and had driven out on the
+Campagna and to the Pamphili-Doria Villa to gather purple and red
+anemones, and to the English cemetery to see the grave of Keats. They
+had also peeped into certain shops, and attended a reception at the
+American Minister's,--in short, like most unwarned travellers, they had
+done about twice as much as prudence and experience would have
+permitted, had those worthies been consulted.
+
+All the romance of Katy's nature responded to the fascination of the
+ancient city,--the capital of the world, as it may truly be called. The
+shortest drive or walk brought them face to face with innumerable and
+unexpected delights. Now it was a wonderful fountain, with plunging
+horses and colossal nymphs and Tritons, holding cups and horns from
+which showers of white foam rose high in air to fall like rushing rain
+into an immense marble basin. Now it was an arched doorway with
+traceries as fine as lace,--sole-remaining fragment of a heathen temple,
+flung and stranded as it were by the waves of time on the squalid shore
+of the present. Now it was a shrine at the meeting of three streets,
+where a dim lamp burned beneath the effigy of the Madonna, with always a
+fresh rose beside it in a vase, and at its foot a peasant woman kneeling
+in red bodice and blue petticoat, with a lace-trimmed towel folded over
+her hair. Or again it would be a sunlit terrace lifted high on a
+hillside, and crowded with carriages full of beautifully dressed people,
+while below all Rome seemed spread out like a panorama, dim, mighty,
+majestic, and bounded by the blue wavy line of the Campagna and the
+Alban hills. Or perhaps it might be a wonderful double flight of steps
+with massive balustrades and pillars with urns, on which sat a crowd of
+figures in strange costumes and attitudes, who all looked as though they
+had stepped out of pictures, but who were in reality models waiting for
+artists to come by and engage them. No matter what it was,--a bit of
+oddly tinted masonry with a tuft of brown and orange wallflowers hanging
+upon it, or a vegetable stall where endive and chiccory and curly
+lettuces were arranged in wreaths with tiny orange gourds and scarlet
+peppers for points of color,--it was all Rome, and, by virtue of that
+word, different from any other place,--more suggestive, more
+interesting, ten times more mysterious than any other could possibly be,
+so Katy thought.
+
+This fact consoled her for everything and anything,--for the fleas, the
+dirt, for the queer things they had to eat and the still queerer odors
+they were forced to smell! Nothing seemed of any particular consequence
+except the deep sense of enjoyment, and the newly discovered world of
+thought and sensation of which she had become suddenly conscious.
+
+The only drawback to her happiness, as the days went on, was that
+little Amy did not seem quite well or like herself. She had taken a
+cold on the journey from Naples, and though it did not seem serious,
+that, or something, made her look pale and thin. Her mother said she
+was growing fast, but the explanation did not quite account for the
+wistful look in the child's eyes and the tired feeling of which she
+continually complained. Mrs. Ashe, with vague uneasiness, began to talk
+of cutting short their Roman stay and getting Amy off to the more
+bracing air of Florence. But meanwhile there was the Carnival close at
+hand, which they must by no means lose; and the feeling that their
+opportunity might be a brief one made her and Katy all the more anxious
+to make the very most of their time. So they filled the days full with
+sights to see and things to do, and came and went; sometimes taking Amy
+with them, but more often leaving her at the hotel under the care of a
+kind German chambermaid, who spoke pretty good English and to whom Amy
+had taken a fancy.
+
+"The marble things are so cold, and the old broken things make me so
+sorry," she explained; "and I hate beggars because they are dirty, and
+the stairs make my back ache; and I'd a great deal rather stay with
+Maria and go up on the roof, if you don't mind, mamma."
+
+This roof, which Amy had chosen as a playplace, covered the whole of the
+great hotel, and had been turned into a sort of upper-air garden by the
+simple process of gravelling it all over, placing trellises of ivy here
+and there, and setting tubs of oranges and oleanders and boxes of gay
+geraniums and stock-gillyflowers on the balustrades. A tame fawn was
+tethered there. Amy adopted him as a playmate; and what with his company
+and that of the flowers, the times when her mother and Katy were absent
+from her passed not unhappily.
+
+Katy always repaired to the roof as soon as they came in from their long
+mornings and afternoons of sight-seeing. Years afterward, she would
+remember with contrition how pathetically glad Amy always was to see
+her. She would put her little head on Katy's breast and hold her tight
+for many minutes without saying a word. When she did speak it was always
+about the house and the garden that she talked. She never asked any
+questions as to where Katy had been, or what she had done; it seemed to
+tire her to think about it.
+
+"I should be very lonely sometimes if it were not for my dear little
+fawn," she told Katy once. "He is so sweet that I don't miss you and
+mamma very much while I have him to play with. I call him Florio,--don't
+you think that is a pretty name? I like to stay with him a great deal
+better than to go about with you to those nasty-smelling old churches,
+with fleas hopping all over them!"
+
+So Amy was left in peace with her fawn, and the others made haste to see
+all they could before the time came to go to Florence.
+
+[Illustration: Amy was left in peace with her fawn.]
+
+Katy realized one of the "moments" for which she had come to Europe when
+she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which
+Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the
+hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival.
+The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and
+conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and
+gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes,
+surprised-looking tourists in tall hats and linen dusters, harlequins,
+clowns, devils, nuns, dominoes of every color,--red, white, blue, black;
+while above, the balconies bloomed like a rose-garden with pretty faces
+framed in lace veils or picturesque hats. Flowers were everywhere,
+wreathed along the house-fronts, tied to the horses' ears, in ladies'
+hands and gentlemen's button-holes, while venders went up and down the
+street bearing great trays of violets and carnations and camellias for
+sale. The air was full of cries and laughter, and the shrill calls of
+merchants advertising their wares,--candy, fruit, birds, lanterns, and
+_confetti_, the latter being merely lumps of lime, large or small, with
+a pea or a bean embedded in each lump to give it weight. Boxes full of
+this unpleasant confection were suspended in front of each balcony, with
+tin scoops to use in ladling it out and flinging it about. Everybody
+wore or carried a wire mask as protection against this white, incessant
+shower; and before long the air became full of a fine dust which hung
+above the Corso like a mist, and filled the eyes and noses and clothes
+of all present with irritating particles.
+
+Pasquino's Car was passing underneath just as Katy and Mrs. Ashe
+arrived,--a gorgeous affair, hung with silken draperies, and bearing as
+symbol an enormous egg, in which the Carnival was supposed to be in act
+of incubation. A huge wagon followed in its wake, on which was a house
+some sixteen feet square, whose sole occupant was a gentleman attended
+by five servants, who kept him supplied with _confetti_, which he
+showered liberally on the heads of the crowd. Then came a car in the
+shape of a steamboat, with a smoke-pipe and sails, over which flew the
+Union Jack, and which was manned with a party wearing the dress of
+British tars. The next wagon bore a company of jolly maskers equipped
+with many-colored bladders, which they banged and rattled as they went
+along. Following this was a troupe of beautiful circus horses,
+cream-colored with scarlet trappings, or sorrel with blue, ridden by
+ladies in pale green velvet laced with silver, or blue velvet and gold.
+Another car bore a bird-cage which was an exact imitation of St.
+Peter's, within which perched a lonely old parrot. This device evidently
+had a political signification, for it was alternately hissed and
+applauded as it went along. The whole scene was like a brilliant,
+rapidly shifting dream; and Katy, as she stood with lips apart and eyes
+wide open with wonderment and pleasure, forgot whether she was in the
+body or not,--forgot everything except what was passing before her gaze.
+
+She was roused by a stinging shower of lime-dust. An Englishman in the
+next balcony had take courteous advantage of her preoccupation, and had
+flung a scoopful of _confetti_ in her undefended face! It is generally
+Anglo-Saxons of the less refined class, English or Americans, who do
+these things at Carnival times. The national love of a rough joke comes
+to the surface, encouraged by the license of the moment, and all the
+grace and prettiness of the festival vanish. Katy laughed, and dusted
+herself as well as she could, and took refuge behind her mask; while a
+nimble American boy of the party changed places with her, and
+thenceforward made that particular Englishman his special target, plying
+such a lively and adroit shovel as to make Katy's assailant rue the hour
+when he evoked this national reprisal. His powdered head and rather
+clumsy efforts to retaliate excited shouts of laughter from the
+adjoining balconies. The young American, fresh from tennis and college
+athletics, darted about and dodged with an agility impossible to his
+heavily built foe; and each effective shot and parry on his side was
+greeted with little cries of applause and the clapping of hands on the
+part of those who were watching the contest.
+
+Exactly opposite them was a balcony hung with white silk, in which sat a
+lady who seemed to be of some distinction; for every now and then an
+officer in brilliant uniform, or some official covered with orders and
+stars, would be shown in by her servants, bow before her with the utmost
+deference, and after a little conversation retire, kissing her gloved
+hand as he went. The lady was a beautiful person, with lustrous black
+eyes and dark hair, over which a lace mantilla was fastened with diamond
+stars. She wore pale blue with white flowers, and altogether, as Katy
+afterward wrote to Clover, reminded her exactly of one of those
+beautiful princesses whom they used to play about in their childhood and
+quarrel over, because every one of them wanted to be the Princess and
+nobody else.
+
+"I wonder who she is," said Mrs. Ashe in a low tone. "She might be
+almost anybody from her looks. She keeps glancing across to us, Katy. Do
+you know, I think she has taken a fancy to you."
+
+Perhaps the lady had; for just then she turned her head and said a word
+to one of her footmen, who immediately placed something in her hand. It
+was a little shining bonbonniere, and rising she threw it straight at
+Katy. Alas! it struck the edge of the balcony and fell into the street
+below, where it was picked up by a ragged little peasant girl in a red
+jacket, who raised a pair of astonished eyes to the heavens, as if sure
+that the gift must have fallen straight from thence. Katy bent forward
+to watch its fate, and went through a little pantomime of regret and
+despair for the benefit of the opposite lady, who only laughed, and
+taking another from her servant flung with better aim, so that it fell
+exactly at Katy's feet. This was a gilded box in the shape of a
+mandolin, with sugar-plums tucked cunningly away inside. Katy kissed
+both her hands in acknowledgment for the pretty toy, and tossed back a
+bunch of roses which she happened to be wearing in her dress. After that
+it seemed the chief amusement of the fair unknown to throw bonbons at
+Katy. Some went straight and some did not; but before the afternoon
+ended, Katy had quite a lapful of confections and trifles,--roses,
+sugared almonds, a satin casket, a silvered box in the shape of a
+horseshoe, a tiny cage with orange blossoms for birds on the perches, a
+minute gondola with a _marron glacée_ by way of passenger, and,
+prettiest of all, a little ivory harp strung with enamelled violets
+instead of wires. For all these favors she had nothing better to offer,
+in return, than a few long-tailed bonbons with gay streamers of ribbon.
+These the lady opposite caught very cleverly, rarely missing one, and
+kissing her hand in thanks each time.
+
+"Isn't she exquisite?" demanded Katy, her eyes shining with
+excitement. "Did you ever see any one so lovely in your life, Polly
+dear? I never did. There, now! she is buying those birds to set them
+free, I do believe."
+
+It was indeed so. A vender of larks had, by the aid of a long staff,
+thrust a cage full of wretched little prisoners up into the balcony; and
+"Katy's lady," as Mrs. Ashe called her, was paying for the whole. As
+they watched she opened the cage door, and with the sweetest look on her
+face encouraged the birds to fly away. The poor little creatures cowered
+and hesitated, not knowing at first what use to make of their new
+liberty; but at last one, the boldest of the company, hopped to the door
+and with a glad, exultant chirp flew straight upward. Then the others,
+taking courage from his example, followed, and all were lost to view in
+the twinkling of an eye.
+
+"Oh, you angel!" cried Katy, leaning over the edge of the balcony and
+kissing both hands impulsively, "I never saw any one so sweet as you are
+in my life. Polly dear, I think carnivals are the most perfectly
+bewitching things in the world. How glad I am that this lasts a week,
+and that we can come every day. Won't Amy be delighted with these
+bonbons! I do hope my lady will be here tomorrow."
+
+How little she dreamed that she was never to enter that balcony again!
+How little can any of us see what lies before us till it comes so near
+that we cannot help seeing it, or shut our eyes, or turn away!
+
+The next morning, almost as soon as it was light, Mrs. Ashe tapped at
+Katy's door. She was in her dressing-gown, and her eyes looked large and
+frightened.
+
+"Amy is ill," she cried. "She has been hot and feverish all night, and
+she says that her head aches dreadfully. What shall I do, Katy? We
+ought to have a doctor at once, and I don't know the name even of any
+doctor here."
+
+Katy sat up in bed, and for one bewildered moment did not speak. Her
+brain felt in a whirl of confusion; but presently it cleared, and she
+saw what to do.
+
+"I will write a note to Mrs. Sands," she said. Mrs. Sands was the wife
+of the American Minister, and one of the few acquaintances they had
+made since they came to Rome. "You remember how nice she was the other
+day, and how we liked her; and she has lived here so long that of
+course she must know all about the doctors. Don't you think that is the
+best thing to do!"
+
+"The very best," said Mrs. Ashe, looking relieved. "I wonder I did not
+think of it myself, but I am so confused that I can't think. Write the
+note at once, please, dear Katy. I will ring your bell for you, and then
+I must hurry back to Amy."
+
+Katy made haste with the note. The answer came promptly in half an hour,
+and by ten o'clock the physician recommended appeared. Dr. Hilary was a
+dark little Italian to all appearance; but his mother had been a
+Scotch-woman, and he spoke English very well,--a great comfort to poor
+Mrs. Ashe, who knew not a word of Italian and not a great deal of
+French. He felt Amy's pulse for a long time, and tested her temperature;
+but he gave no positive opinion, only left a prescription, and said that
+he would call later in the day and should then be able to judge more
+clearly what the attack was likely to prove.
+
+Katy augured ill from this reserve. There was no talk of going to the
+Carnival that afternoon; no one had any heart for it. Instead, Katy
+spent the time in trying to recollect all she had ever heard about the
+care of sick people,--what was to be done first and what next,--and in
+searching the shops for a feather pillow, which luxury Amy was
+imperiously demanding. The pillows of Roman hotels are, as a general
+thing, stuffed with wool, and very hard.
+
+"I won't have this horrid pillow any longer," poor Amy was screaming.
+"It's got bricks in it. It hurts the back of my neck. Take it away,
+mamma, and give me a nice soft American pillow. I won't have this a
+minute longer. Don't you hear me, mamma! Take it away!"
+
+So, while Mrs. Ashe pacified Amy to the best of her ability, Katy
+hurried out in quest of the desired pillow. It proved almost an
+unattainable luxury; but at last, after a long search, she secured an
+air-cushion, a down cushion about twelve inches square, and one old
+feather pillow which had come from some auction, and had apparently lain
+for years in the corner of the shop. When this was encased in a fresh
+cover of Canton flannel, it did very well, and stilled Amy's complaints
+a little; but all night she grew worse, and when Dr. Hilary came next
+day, he was forced to utter plainly the dreaded words "Roman fever." Amy
+was in for an attack,--a light one he hoped it might be,--but they had
+better know the truth and make ready for it.
+
+Mrs. Ashe was utterly overwhelmed by this verdict, and for the first
+bewildered moments did not know which way to turn. Katy, happily, kept
+a steadier head. She had the advantage of a little preparation of
+thought, and had decided beforehand what it would be necessary to do
+"in case." Oh, that fateful "in case"! The doctor and she consulted
+together, and the result was that Katy sought out the padrona of the
+establishment, and without hinting at the nature of Amy's attack,
+secured some rooms just vacated, which were at the end of a corridor,
+and a little removed from the rooms of other people. There was a large
+room with corner windows, a smaller one opening from it, and another,
+still smaller, close by, which would serve as a storeroom or might do
+for the use of a nurse.
+
+These rooms, without much consultation with Mrs. Ashe,--who seemed
+stunned and sat with her eyes fixed on Amy, just answering, "Certainly,
+dear, anything you say," when applied to,--Katy had arranged according
+to her own ideas of comfort and hygienic necessity, as learned from Miss
+Nightingale's excellent little book on nursing. From the larger room she
+had the carpet, curtains, and nearly all the furniture taken away, the
+floor scrubbed with hot soapsuds, and the bed pulled out from the wall
+to allow of a free circulation of air all round it. The smaller one she
+made as comfortable as possible for the use of Mrs. Ashe, choosing for
+it the softest sofa and the best mattresses that were obtainable; for
+she knew that her friend's strength was likely to be severely tried if
+Amy's illness proved serious. When all was ready, Amy, well wrapped in
+her coverings, was carried down the entry and laid in the fresh bed with
+the soft pillows about her; and Katy, as she went to and fro, conveying
+clothes and books and filling drawers, felt that they were perhaps
+making arrangements for a long, hard trial of faith and spirits.
+
+By the next day the necessity of a nurse became apparent, and in the
+afternoon Katy started out in a little hired carriage in search of one.
+She had a list of names, and went first to the English nurses; but
+finding them all engaged, she ordered the coachman to drive to a convent
+where there was hope that a nursing sister might be procured.
+
+Their route lay across the Corso. So utterly had the Carnival with all
+its gay follies vanished from her mind, that she was for a moment
+astonished at finding herself entangled in a motley crowd, so dense
+that the coachman was obliged to rein in his horses and stand still for
+some time.
+
+There were the same masks and dominos, the same picturesque peasant
+costumes which had struck her as so gay and pretty only three days
+before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow
+it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had
+taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the
+apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay
+chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The
+bright colors affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them.
+She lay back in the carriage, trying to be patient under the detention,
+and half shut her eyes.
+
+A shower of lime dust aroused her. It came from a party of burly figures
+in white cotton dominos, whose carriage had been stayed by the crowd
+close to her own. She signified by gestures that she had no _confetti_
+and no protection, that she "was not playing," in fact; but her appeal
+made no difference. The maskers kept on shovelling lime all over her
+hair and person and the carriage, and never tired of the sport till an
+opportune break in the procession enabled their vehicle to move on.
+
+Katy was shaking their largesse from her dress and parasol as well as
+she could, when an odd gibbering sound close to her ear, and the
+laughter of the crowd attracted her attention to the back of the
+carriage. A masker attired as a scarlet devil had climbed into the hood,
+and was now perched close behind her. She shook her head at him; but he
+only shook his in return, and chattered and grimaced, and bent over till
+his fiery mask almost grazed her shoulder. There was no hope but in good
+humor, as she speedily realized; and recollecting that in her
+shopping-bag one or two of the Carnival bonbons still remained, she took
+these out and offered them in the hope of propitiating him. The fiend
+bit one to insure that it was made of sugar and not lime, while the
+crowd laughed more than ever; then, seeming satisfied, he made Katy a
+little speech in rapid Italian, of which she did not comprehend a word,
+kissed her hand, jumped down from the carriage and disappeared in the
+crowd to her great relief.
+
+Presently after that the driver spied an opening, of which he took
+advantage. They were across the Corso now, the roar and rush of the
+Carnival dying into silence as they drove rapidly on; and Katy, as she
+finished wiping away the last of the lime dust, wiped some tears from
+her cheeks as well.
+
+"How hateful it all was!" she said to herself. Then she remembered a
+sentence read somewhere, "How heavily roll the wheels of other people's
+joys when your heart is sorrowful!" and she realized that it is true.
+
+The convent was propitious, and promised to send a sister next morning,
+with the proviso that every second day she was to come back to sleep and
+rest. Katy was too thankful for any aid to make objections, and drove
+home with visions of saintly nuns with pure pale faces full of peace and
+resignation, such as she had read of in books, floating before her eyes.
+
+Sister Ambrogia, when she appeared next day, did not exactly realize
+these imaginations. She was a plump little person, with rosy cheeks, a
+pair of demure black eyes, and a very obstinate mouth and chin. It soon
+appeared that natural inclination combined with the rules of her convent
+made her theory of a nurse's duties a very limited one.
+
+If Mrs. Ashe wished her to go down to the office with an order, she was
+told: "We sisters care for the sick; we are not allowed to converse with
+porters and hotel people."
+
+If Katy suggested that on the way home she should leave a prescription
+at the chemist's, it was: "We sisters are for nursing only; we do not
+visit shops." And when she was asked if she could make beef tea, she
+replied calmly but decisively, "We sisters are not cooks."
+
+In fact, all that Sister Ambrogia seemed able or willing to do, beyond
+the bathing of Amy's face and brushing her hair, which she accomplished
+handily, was to sit by the bedside telling her rosary, or plying a
+little ebony shuttle in the manufacture of a long strip of tatting. Even
+this amount of usefulness was interfered with by the fact that Amy, who
+by this time was in a semi-delirious condition, had taken an aversion to
+her at the first glance, and was not willing to be left with her for a
+single moment.
+
+"I won't stay here alone with Sister Embroidery," she would cry, if her
+mother and Katy went into the next room for a moment's rest or a private
+consultation; "I hate Sister Embroidery! Come back, mamma, come back
+this moment! She's making faces at me, and chattering just like an old
+parrot, and I don't understand a word she says. Take Sister Embroidery
+away, mamma, I tell you! Don't you hear me? Come back, I say!"
+
+The little voice would be raised to a shrill scream; and Mrs. Ashe and
+Katy, hurrying back, would find Amy sitting up on her pillow with wet,
+scarlet-flushed cheeks and eyes bright with fever, ready to throw
+herself out of bed; while, calm as Mabel, whose curly head lay on the
+pillow beside her little mistress, Sister Ambrogia, unaware of the
+intricacies of the English language, was placidly telling her beads and
+muttering prayers to herself. Some of these prayers, I do not doubt,
+related to Amy's recovery if not to her conversion, and were well meant;
+but they were rather irritating under the circumstances!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN.
+
+
+When the first shock is over and the inevitable realized and accepted,
+those who tend a long illness are apt to fall into a routine of life
+which helps to make the days seem short. The apparatus of nursing is got
+together. Every day the same things need to be done at the same hours
+and in the same way. Each little appliance is kept at hand; and sad and
+tired as the watchers may be, the very monotony and regularity of their
+proceedings give a certain stay for their thoughts to rest upon.
+
+But there was little of this monotony to help Mrs. Ashe and Katy through
+with Amy's illness. Small chance was there for regularity or exact
+system; for something unexpected was always turning up, and needful
+things were often lacking. The most ordinary comforts of the sick-room,
+or what are considered so in America, were hard to come by, and much of
+Katy's time was spent in devising substitutes to take their places.
+
+Was ice needed? A pailful of dirty snow would be brought in, full of
+straws, sticks, and other refuse, which had apparently been scraped from
+the surface of the street after a frosty night. Not a particle of it
+could be put into milk or water; all that could be done was to make the
+pail serve the purpose of a refrigerator, and set bowls and tumblers in
+it to chill.
+
+Was a feeding-cup wanted? It came of a cumbrous and antiquated pattern,
+which the infant Hercules may have enjoyed, but which the modern Amy
+abominated and rejected. Such a thing as a glass tube could not be found
+in all Rome. Bed-rests were unknown. Katy searched in vain for an
+India-rubber hot-water bag.
+
+But the greatest trial of all was the beef tea. It was Amy's sole food,
+and almost her only medicine; for Dr. Hilary believed in leaving Nature
+pretty much to herself in cases of fever. The kitchen of the hotel sent
+up, under that name, a mixture of grease and hot water, which could not
+be given to Amy at all. In vain Katy remonstrated and explained the
+process. In vain did she go to the kitchen herself to translate a
+carefully written recipe to the cook, and to slip a shining five-franc
+piece in his hand, which it was hoped would quicken his energies and
+soften his heart. In vain did she order private supplies of the best of
+beef from a separate market. The cooks stole the beef and ignored the
+recipe; and day after day the same bottle-full of greasy liquid came
+upstairs, which Amy would not touch, and which would have done her no
+good had she swallowed it all. At last, driven to desperation, Katy
+procured a couple of stout bottles, and every morning slowly and
+carefully cut up two pounds of meat into small pieces, sealed the bottle
+with her own seal ring, and sent it down to be boiled for a specified
+time. This answered better, for the thieving cook dared not tamper with
+her seal; but it was a long and toilsome process, and consumed more time
+than she well knew how to spare,--for there were continual errands to be
+done which no one could attend to but herself, and the interminable
+flights of stairs taxed her strength painfully, and seemed to grow
+longer and harder every day.
+
+At last a good Samaritan turned up in the shape of an American lady with
+a house of her own, who, hearing of their plight from Mrs. Sands,
+undertook to send each day a supply of strong, perfectly made beef tea,
+from her own kitchen, for Amy's use. It was an inexpressible relief, and
+the lightening of this one particular care made all the rest seem easier
+of endurance.
+
+Another great relief came, when, after some delay, Dr. Hilary succeeded
+in getting an English nurse to take the places of the unsatisfactory
+Sister Ambrogia and her substitute, Sister Agatha, whom Amy in her
+half-comprehending condition persisted in calling "Sister Nutmeg
+Grater." Mrs. Swift was a tall, wiry, angular person, who seemed made of
+equal parts of iron and whalebone. She was never tired; she could lift
+anybody, do anything; and for sleep she seemed to have a sort of
+antipathy, preferring to sit in an easy-chair and drop off into little
+dozes, whenever it was convenient, to going regularly to bed for a
+night's rest.
+
+Amy took to her from the first, and the new nurse managed her
+beautifully. No one else could soothe her half so well during the
+delirious period, when the little shrill voice seemed never to be still,
+and went on all day and all night in alternate raving or screaming or,
+what was saddest of all to hear, low pitiful moans. There was no
+shutting in these sounds. People moved out of the rooms below and on
+either side, because they could get no sleep; and till the arrival of
+Nurse Swift, there was no rest for poor Mrs. Ashe, who could not keep
+away from her darling for a moment while that mournful wailing sounded
+in her ears.
+
+Somehow the long, dry Englishwoman seemed to have a mesmeric effect on
+Amy, who was never quite so violent after she arrived. Katy was more
+thankful for this than can well be told; for her great underlying
+dread--a dread she dared not whisper plainly even to herself--was that
+"Polly dear" might break down before Amy was better, and then what
+_should_ they do?
+
+She took every care that was possible of her friend. She made her eat;
+she made her lie down. She forced daily doses of quinine and port-wine
+down her throat, and saved her every possible step. But no one, however
+affectionate and willing, could do much to lift the crushing burden of
+care, which was changing Mrs. Ashe's rosy fairness to wan pallor and
+laying such dark shadows under the pretty gray eyes. She had taken small
+thought of looks since Amy's illness. All the little touches which had
+made her toilette becoming, all the crimps and fluffs, had disappeared;
+yet somehow never had she seemed to Katy half so lovely as now in the
+plain black gown which she wore all day long, with her hair tucked into
+a knot behind her ears. Her real beauty of feature and outline seemed
+only enhanced by the rigid plainness of her attire, and the charm of
+true expression grew in her face. Never had Katy admired and loved her
+friend so well as during those days of fatigue and wearing suspense, or
+realized so strongly the worth of her sweetness of temper, her
+unselfishness and power of devoting herself to other people.
+
+"Polly bears it wonderfully," she wrote her father; "she was all broken
+down for the first day or two, but now her courage and patience are
+surprising. When I think how precious Amy is to her and how lonely her
+life would be if she were to die, I can hardly keep the tears out of my
+eyes. But Polly does not cry. She is quiet and brave and almost cheerful
+all the time, keeping herself busy with what needs to be done; she never
+complains, and she looks--oh, so pretty! I think I never knew how much
+she had in her before."
+
+All this time no word had come from Lieutenant Worthington. His sister
+had written him as soon as Amy was taken ill, and had twice telegraphed
+since, but no answer had been received, and this strange silence added
+to the sense of lonely isolation and distance from home and help which
+those who encounter illness in a foreign land have to bear.
+
+So first one week and then another wore themselves away somehow. The
+fever did not break on the fourteenth day, as had been hoped, and must
+run for another period, the doctor said; but its force was lessened, and
+he considered that a favorable sign. Amy was quieter now and did not
+rave so constantly, but she was very weak. All her pretty hair had been
+shorn away, which made her little face look tiny and sharp. Mabel's
+golden wig was sacrificed at the same time. Amy had insisted upon it,
+and they dared not cross her.
+
+"She has got a fever, too, and it's a great deal badder than mine is,"
+she protested. "Her cheeks are as hot as fire. She ought to have ice on
+her head, and how can she when her bang is so thick? Cut it all off,
+every bit, and then I will let you cut mine."
+
+"You had better give ze child her way," said Dr. Hilary. "She's in no
+state to be fretted with triffles [trifles, the doctor meant], and in ze
+end it will be well; for ze fever infection might harbor in zat doll's
+head as well as elsewhere, and I should have to disinfect it, which
+would be bad for ze skin of her."
+
+"She isn't a doll," cried Amy, overhearing him; "she's my child, and you
+sha'n't call her names." She hugged Mabel tight in her arms, and glared
+at Dr. Hilary defiantly.
+
+So Katy with pitiful fingers slashed away at Mabel's blond wig till her
+head was as bare as a billiard-ball; and Amy, quite content, patted her
+child while her own locks were being cut, and murmured, "Perhaps your
+hair will all come out in little round curls, darling, as Johnnie Carr's
+did;" then she fell into one of the quietest sleeps she had yet had.
+
+It was the day after this that Katy, coming in from a round of errands,
+found Mrs. Ashe standing erect and pale, with a frightened look in her
+eyes, and her back against Amy's door, as if defending it from somebody.
+Confronting her was Madame Frulini, the _padrona_ of the hotel. Madame's
+cheeks were red, and her eyes bright and fierce; she was evidently in a
+rage about something, and was pouring out a torrent of excited Italian,
+with now and then a French or English word slipped in by way of
+punctuation, and all so rapidly that only a trained ear could have
+followed or grasped her meaning.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Katy, in amazement.
+
+"Oh, Katy, I am so glad you have come," cried poor Mrs. Ashe. "I can
+hardly understand a word that this horrible woman says, but I think she
+wants to turn us out of the hotel, and that we shall take Amy to some
+other place. It would be the death of her,--I know it would. I never,
+never will go, unless the doctor says it is safe. I oughtn't to,--I
+couldn't; she can't make me, can she, Katy?"
+
+"Madame," said Katy,--and there was a flash in her eyes before which the
+landlady rather shrank,--"what is all this? Why do you come to trouble
+madame while her child is so ill?"
+
+Then came another torrent of explanation which didn't explain; but Katy
+gathered enough of the meaning to make out that Mrs. Ashe was quite
+correct in her guess, and that Madame Frulini was requesting, nay,
+insisting, that they should remove Amy from the hotel at once. There
+were plenty of apartments to be had now that the Carnival was over, she
+said,--her own cousin had rooms close by,--it could easily be arranged,
+and people were going away from the Del Mondo every day because there
+was fever in the house. Such a thing could not be, it should not
+be,--the landlady's voice rose to a shriek, "the child must go!"
+
+"You are a cruel woman," said Katy, indignantly, when she had grasped
+the meaning of the outburst. "It is wicked, it is cowardly, to come thus
+and attack a poor lady under your roof who has so much already to bear.
+It is her only child who is lying in there,--her only one, do you
+understand, madame?--and she is a widow. What you ask might kill the
+child. I shall not permit you or any of your people to enter that door
+till the doctor comes, and then I shall tell him how you have behaved,
+and we shall see what he will say." As she spoke she turned the key of
+Amy's door, took it out and put it in her pocket, then faced the
+_padrona_ steadily, looking her straight in the eyes.
+
+"Mademoiselle," stormed the landlady, "I give you my word, four people
+have left this house already because of the noises made by little miss.
+More will go. I shall lose my winter's profit,--all of it,--all; it will
+be said there is fever at the Del Mondo,--no one will hereafter come to
+me. There are lodgings plenty, comfortable,--oh, so comfortable! I will
+not have my season ruined by a sickness; no, I will not!"
+
+Madame Frulini's voice was again rising to a scream.
+
+"Be silent!" said Katy, sternly; "you will frighten the child. I am
+sorry that you should lose any customers, madame, but the fever is here
+and we are here, and here we must stay till it is safe to go. The child
+shall not be moved till the doctor gives permission. Money is not the
+only thing in the world! Mrs. Ashe will pay anything that is fair to
+make up your losses to you, but you must leave this room now, and not
+return till Dr. Hilary is here."
+
+Where Katy found French for all these long coherent speeches, she could
+never afterward imagine. She tried to explain it by saying that
+excitement inspired her for the moment, but that as soon as the moment
+was over the inspiration died away and left her as speechless and
+confused as ever. Clover said it made her think of the miracle of
+Balaam; and Katy merrily rejoined that it might be so, and that no
+donkey in any age of the world could possibly have been more grateful
+than was she for the sudden gift of speech.
+
+"But it is not the money,--it is my prestige," declared the landlady.
+
+"Thank Heaven! here is the doctor now," cried Mrs. Ashe.
+
+The doctor had in fact been standing in the doorway for several moments
+before they noticed him, and had overheard part of the colloquy with
+Madame Frulini. With him was some one else, at the sight of whom Mrs.
+Ashe gave a great sob of relief. It was her brother, at last.
+
+When Italian meets Italian, then comes the tug of expletive. It did not
+seem to take one second for Dr. Hilary to whirl the _padrona_ out into
+the entry, where they could be heard going at each other like two
+furious cats. Hiss, roll, sputter, recrimination, objurgation! In five
+minutes Madame Frulini was, metaphorically speaking, on her knees, and
+the doctor standing over her with drawn sword, making her take back
+every word she had said and every threat she had uttered.
+
+"Prestige of thy miserable hotel!" he thundered; "where will that be
+when I go and tell the English and Americans--all of whom I know, every
+one!--how thou hast served a countrywoman of theirs in thy house? Dost
+thou think thy prestige will help thee much when Dr. Hilary has fixed a
+black mark on thy door! I tell thee no; not a stranger shalt thou have
+next year to eat so much as a plate of macaroni under thy base roof! I
+will advertise thy behavior in all the foreign papers,--in Figaro, in
+Galignani, in the Swiss Times, and the English one which is read by all
+the nobility, and the Heraldo of New York, which all Americans peruse--"
+
+"Oh, doctor--pardon me--I regret what I said--I am afflicted--"
+
+"I will post thee in the railroad stations," continued the doctor,
+implacably; "I will bid my patients to write letters to all their
+friends, warning them against thy flea-ridden Del Mondo; I will apprise
+the steamboat companies at Genoa and Naples. Thou shalt see what comes
+of it,--truly, thou shalt see."
+
+Having thus reduced Madame Frulini to powder, the doctor now
+condescended to take breath and listen to her appeals for mercy; and
+presently he brought her in with her mouth full of protestations and
+apologies, and assurances that the ladies had mistaken her meaning, she
+had only spoken for the good of all; nothing was further from her
+intention than that they should be disturbed or offended in any way, and
+she and all her household were at the service of "the little sick angel
+of God." After which the doctor dismissed her with an air of
+contemptuous tolerance, and laid his hand on the door of Amy's room.
+Behold, it was locked!
+
+"Oh, I forgot," cried Katy, laughing; and she pulled the key out of
+her pocket.
+
+"You are a hee-roine, mademoiselle," said Dr. Hilary. "I watched you as
+you faced that tigress, and your eyes were like a swordsman's as he
+regards his enemy's rapier."
+
+"Oh, she was so brave, and such a help!" said Mrs. Ashe, kissing her
+impulsively. "You can't think how she has stood by me all through, Ned,
+or what a comfort she has been."
+
+"Yes, I can," said Ned Worthington, with a warm, grateful look at Katy.
+"I can believe anything good of Miss Carr."
+
+"But where have _you_ been all this time?" said Katy, who felt this
+flood of compliment to be embarrassing; "we have so wondered at not
+hearing from you."
+
+"I have been off on a ten-days' leave to Corsica for moufflon-shooting,"
+replied Mr. Worthington. "I only got Polly's telegrams and letters day
+before yesterday, and I came away as soon as I could get my leave
+extended. It was a most unlucky absence. I shall always regret it."
+
+"Oh, it is all right now that you have come," his sister said, leaning
+her head on his arm with a look of relief and rest which was good to
+see. "Everything will go better now, I am sure."
+
+"Katy Carr has behaved like a perfect angel," she told her brother when
+they were alone.
+
+"She is a trump of a girl. I came in time for part of that scene with
+the landlady, and upon my word she was glorious! I didn't suppose she
+could look so handsome."
+
+"Have the Pages left Nice yet?" asked his sister, rather irrelevantly.
+
+"No,--at least they were there on Thursday, but I think that they were
+to start to-day."
+
+Mr. Worthington answered carelessly, but his face darkened as he spoke.
+There had been a little scene in Nice which he could not forget. He was
+sitting in the English garden with Lilly and her mother when his
+sister's telegrams were brought to him; and he had read them aloud,
+partly as an explanation for the immediate departure which they made
+necessary and which broke up an excursion just arranged with the ladies
+for the afternoon. It is not pleasant to have plans interfered with; and
+as neither Mrs. Page nor her daughter cared personally for little Amy,
+it is not strange that disappointment at the interruption of their
+pleasure should have been the first impulse with them. Still, this did
+not excuse Lilly's unstudied exclamation of "Oh, bother!" and though she
+speedily repented it as an indiscretion, and was properly sympathetic,
+and "hoped the poor little thing would soon be better," Amy's uncle
+could not forget the jarring impression. It completed a process of
+disenchantment which had long been going on; and as hearts are sometimes
+caught at the rebound, Mrs. Ashe was not so far astray when she built
+certain little dim sisterly hopes on his evident admiration for Katy's
+courage and this sudden awakening to a sense of her good looks.
+
+But no space was left for sentiment or match-making while still Amy's
+fate hung in the balance, and all three of them found plenty to do
+during the next fortnight. The fever did not turn on the twenty-first
+day, and another weary week of suspense set in, each day bringing a
+decrease of the dangerous symptoms, but each day as well marking a
+lessening in the childish strength which had been so long and severely
+tested. Amy was quite conscious now, and lay quietly, sleeping a great
+deal and speaking seldom. There was not much to do but to wait and hope;
+but the flame of hope burned low at times, as the little life flickered
+in its socket, and seemed likely to go out like a wind-blown torch.
+
+Now and then Lieutenant Worthington would persuade his sister to go
+with him for a few minutes' drive or walk in the fresh air, from which
+she had so long been debarred, and once or twice he prevailed on Katy
+to do the same; but neither of them could bear to be away long from
+Amy's bedside.
+
+Intimacy grows fast when people are thus united by a common anxiety,
+sharing the same hopes and fears day after day, speaking and thinking of
+the same thing. The gay young officer at Nice, who had counted so little
+in Katy's world, seemed to have disappeared, and the gentle,
+considerate, tender-hearted fellow who now filled his place was quite a
+different person in her eyes. Katy began to count on Ned Worthington as
+a friend who could be trusted for help and sympathy and comprehension,
+and appealed to and relied upon in all emergencies. She was quite at
+ease with him now, and asked him to do this and that, to come and help
+her, or to absent himself, as freely as if he had been Dorry or Phil.
+
+He, on his part, found this easy intimacy charming. In the reaction of
+his temporary glamour for the pretty Lilly, Katy's very difference from
+her was an added attraction. This difference consisted, as much as
+anything else, in the fact that she was so truly in earnest in what she
+said and did. Had Lilly been in Katy's place, she would probably have
+been helpful to Mrs. Ashe and kind to Amy so far as in her lay; but the
+thought of self would have tinctured all that she did and said, and the
+need of keeping to what was tasteful and becoming would have influenced
+her in every emergency, and never have been absent from her mind.
+
+Katy, on the contrary, absorbed in the needs of the moment, gave little
+heed to how she looked or what any one was thinking about her. Her habit
+of neatness made her take time for the one thorough daily dressing,--the
+brushing of hair and freshening of clothes, which were customary with
+her; but, this tax paid to personal comfort, she gave little further
+heed to appearances. She wore an old gray gown, day in and day out,
+which Lilly would not have put on for half an hour without a large
+bribe, so unbecoming was it; but somehow Lieutenant Worthington grew to
+like the gray gown as a part of Katy herself. And if by chance he
+brought a rose in to cheer the dim stillness of the sick-room, and she
+tucked it into her buttonhole, immediately it was as though she were
+decked for conquest. Pretty dresses are very pretty on pretty
+people,--they certainly play an important part in this queer little
+world of ours; but depend upon it, dear girls, no woman ever has
+established so distinct and clear a claim on the regard of her lover as
+when he has ceased to notice or analyze what she wears, and just accepts
+it unquestioningly, whatever it is, as a bit of the dear human life
+which has grown or is growing to be the best and most delightful thing
+in the world to him.
+
+The gray gown played its part during the long anxious night when they
+all sat watching breathlessly to see which way the tide would turn with
+dear little Amy. The doctor came at midnight, and went away to come
+again at dawn. Mrs. Swift sat grim and watchful beside the pillow of her
+charge, rising now and then to feel pulse and skin, or to put a spoonful
+of something between Amy's lips. The doors and windows stood open to
+admit the air. In the outer room all was hushed. A dim Roman lamp, fed
+with olive oil, burned in one corner behind a screen. Mrs. Ashe lay on
+the sofa with her eyes closed, bearing the strain of suspense in
+absolute silence. Her brother sat beside her, holding in his one of the
+hot hands whose nervous twitches alone told of the surgings of hope and
+fear within. Katy was resting in a big chair near by, her wistful eyes
+fixed on Amy's little figure seen in the dim distance, her ears alert
+for every sound from the sick-room.
+
+So they watched and waited. Now and then Ned Worthington or Katy would
+rise softly, steal on tiptoe to the bedside, and come back to whisper to
+Mrs. Ashe that Amy had stirred or that she seemed to be asleep. It was
+one of the nights which do not come often in a lifetime, and which
+people never forget. The darkness seems full of meaning; the hush, of
+sound. God is beyond, holding the sunrise in his right hand, holding the
+sun of our earthly hopes as well,--will it dawn in sorrow or in joy? We
+dare not ask, we can only wait.
+
+A faint stir of wind and a little broadening of the light roused Katy
+from a trance of half-understood thoughts. She crept once more into
+Amy's room. Mrs. Swift laid a warning finger on her lips; Amy was
+sleeping, she said with a gesture. Katy whispered the news to the still
+figure on the sofa, then she went noiselessly out of the room. The great
+hotel was fast asleep; not a sound stirred the profound silence of the
+dark halls. A longing for fresh air led her to the roof.
+
+There was the dawn just tingeing the east. The sky, even thus early,
+wore the deep mysterious blue of Italy. A fresh _tramontana_ was
+blowing, and made Katy glad to draw her shawl about her.
+
+Far away in the distance rose the Alban Hills above the dim Campagna,
+with the more lofty Sabines beyond, and Soracte, clear cut against the
+sky like a wave frozen in the moment of breaking. Below lay the ancient
+city, with its strange mingling of the old and the new, of past things
+embedded in the present; or is it the present thinly veiling the rich
+and mighty past,--who shall say?
+
+Faint rumblings of wheels and here and there a curl of smoke showed that
+Rome was waking up. The light insensibly grew upon the darkness. A pink
+flush lit up the horizon. Florio stirred in his lair, stretched his
+dappled limbs, and as the first sun-ray glinted on the roof, raised
+himself, crossed the gravelled tiles with soundless feet, and ran his
+soft nose into Katy's hand. She fondled him for Amy's sake as she stood
+bent over the flower-boxes, inhaling the scent of the mignonette and
+gilly-flowers, with her eyes fixed on the distance; but her heart was at
+home with the sleepers there, and a rush of strong desire stirred her.
+Would this dreary time come to an end presently, and should they be set
+at liberty to go their ways with no heavy sorrow to press them down, to
+be care-free and happy again in their own land?
+
+A footstep startled her. Ned Worthington was coming over the roof on
+tiptoe as if fearful of disturbing somebody. His face looked resolute
+and excited.
+
+"I wanted to tell you," he said in a hushed voice, "that the doctor is
+here, and he says Amy has no fever, and with care may be considered out
+of danger."
+
+"Thank God!" cried Katy, bursting into tears. The long fatigue, the
+fears kept in check so resolutely, the sleepless night just passed, had
+their revenge now, and she cried and cried as if she could never stop,
+but with all the time such joy and gratitude in her heart! She was
+conscious that Ned had his arm round her and was holding both her hands
+tight; but they were so one in the emotion of the moment that it did not
+seem strange.
+
+"How sweet the sun looks!" she said presently, releasing herself, with a
+happy smile flashing through her tears; "it hasn't seemed really bright
+for ever so long. How silly I was to cry! Where is dear Polly? I must go
+down to her at once. Oh, what does she say?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+NEXT.
+
+
+Lieut. Worthington's leave had nearly expired. He must rejoin his
+ship; but he waited till the last possible moment in order to help his
+sister through the move to Albano, where it had been decided that Amy
+should go for a few days of hill air before undertaking the longer
+journey to Florence.
+
+It was a perfect morning in late March when the pale little invalid was
+carried in her uncle's strong arms, and placed in the carriage which was
+to take them to the old town on the mountain slopes which they had seen
+shining from far away for so many weeks past. Spring had come in her
+fairest shape to Italy. The Campagna had lost its brown and tawny hues
+and taken on a tinge of fresher color. The olive orchards were budding
+thickly. Almond boughs extended their dazzling shapes across the blue
+sky. Arums and acanthus and ivy filled every hollow, roses nodded from
+over every gate, while a carpet of violets and cyclamen and primroses
+stretched over the fields and freighted every wandering wind with
+fragrance.
+
+When once the Campagna with its long line of aqueducts, arches, and
+hoary tombs was left behind, and the carriage slowly began to mount the
+gradual rises of the hill, Amy revived. With every breath of the fresher
+air her eyes seemed to brighten and her voice to grow stronger. She held
+Mabel up to look at the view; and the sound of her laugh, faint and
+feeble as it was, was like music to her mother's ears.
+
+Amy wore a droll little silk-lined cap on her head, over which a downy
+growth of pale-brown fuzz was gradually thickening. Already it showed a
+tendency to form into tiny rings, which to Amy, who had always hankered
+for curls, was an extreme satisfaction. Strange to say, the same thing
+exactly had happened to Mabel; her hair had grown out into soft little
+round curls also! Uncle Ned and Katy had ransacked Rome for this
+baby-wig, which filled and realized all Amy's hopes for her child. On
+the same excursion they had bought the materials for the pretty spring
+suit which Mabel wore, for it had been deemed necessary to sacrifice
+most of her wardrobe as a concession to possible fever-germs. Amy
+admired the pearl-colored dress and hat, the fringed jacket and little
+lace-trimmed parasol so much, that she was quite consoled for the loss
+of the blue velvet costume and ermine muff which had been the pride of
+her heart ever since they left Paris, and whose destruction they had
+scarcely dared to confess to her.
+
+So up, up, up, they climbed till the gateway of the old town was passed,
+and the carriage stopped before a quaint building once the residence of
+the Bishop of Albano, but now known as the Hôtel de la Poste. Here they
+alighted, and were shown up a wide and lofty staircase to their rooms,
+which were on the sunny side of the house, and looked across a walled
+garden, where roses and lemon trees grew beside old fountains guarded by
+sculptured lions and heathen divinities with broken noses and a scant
+supply of fingers and toes, to the Campagna, purple with distance and
+stretching miles and miles away to where Rome sat on her seven hills,
+lifting high the Dome of St. Peter's into the illumined air.
+
+Nurse Swift said that Amy must go to bed at once, and have a long rest.
+But Amy nearly wept at the proposal, and declared that she was not a bit
+tired and couldn't sleep if she went to bed ever so much. The change of
+air had done her good already, and she looked more like herself than for
+many weeks past. They compromised their dispute on a sofa, where Amy,
+well wrapped up, was laid, and where, in spite of her protestations, she
+presently fell asleep, leaving the others free to examine and arrange
+their new quarters.
+
+Such enormous rooms as they were! It was quite a journey to go from one
+side of them to another. The floors were of stone, with squares of
+carpet laid down over them, which looked absurdly small for the great
+spaces they were supposed to cover. The beds and tables were of the
+usual size, but they seemed almost like doll furniture because the
+chambers were so big. A quaint old paper, with an enormous pattern of
+banyan trees and pagodas, covered the walls, and every now and then
+betrayed by an oblong of regular cracks the existence of a hidden door,
+papered to look exactly like the rest of the wall.
+
+These mysterious doors made Katy nervous, and she never rested till she
+had opened every one of them and explored the places they led to. One
+gave access to a queer little bathroom. Another led, through a narrow
+dark passage, to a sort of balcony or loggia overhanging the garden. A
+third ended in a dusty closet with an artful chink in it from which you
+could peep into what had been the Bishop's drawing-room but which was
+now turned into the dining-room of the hotel. It seemed made for
+purposes of espial; and Katy had visions of a long line of reverend
+prelates with their ears glued to the chink, overhearing what was being
+said about them in the apartment beyond.
+
+The most surprising of all she did not discover till she was going to
+bed on the second night after their arrival, when she thought she knew
+all about the mysterious doors and what they led to. A little
+unexplained draught of wind made her candle flicker, and betrayed the
+existence of still another door so cunningly hid in the wall pattern
+that she had failed to notice it. She had quite a creepy feeling as she
+drew her dressing-gown about her, took a light, and entered the narrow
+passage into which it opened. It was not a long passage, and ended
+presently in a tiny oratory. There was a little marble altar, with a
+kneeling-step and candlesticks and a great crucifix above. Ends of wax
+candles still remained in the candlesticks, and bunches of dusty paper
+flowers filled the vases which stood on either side of them. A faded
+silk cushion lay on the step. Doubtless the Bishop had often knelt
+there. Katy felt as if she were the first person to enter the place
+since he went away. Her common-sense told her that in a hotel bedroom
+constantly occupied by strangers for years past, some one _must_ have
+discovered the door and found the little oratory before her; but
+common-sense is sometimes less satisfactory than romance. Katy liked to
+think that she was the first, and to "make believe" that no one else
+knew about it; so she did so, and invented legends about the place which
+Amy considered better than any fairy story.
+
+Before he left them Lieutenant Worthington had a talk with his sister
+in the garden. She rather forced this talk upon him, for various
+things were lying at her heart about which she longed for explanation;
+but he yielded so easily to her wiles that it was evident he was not
+averse to the idea.
+
+"Come, Polly, don't beat about the bush any longer," he said at last,
+amused and a little irritated at her half-hints and little feminine
+_finesses_. "I know what you want to ask; and as there's no use
+making a secret of it, I will take my turn in asking. Have I any chance,
+do you think?"
+
+"Any chance?--about Katy, do you mean? Oh, Ned, you make me so happy."
+
+"Yes; about her, of course."
+
+"I don't see why you should say 'of course,'" remarked his sister, with
+the perversity of her sex, "when it's only five or six weeks ago that I
+was lying awake at night for fear you were being gobbled up by that
+Lilly Page."
+
+"There was a little risk of it," replied her brother, seriously. "She's
+awfully pretty and she dances beautifully, and the other fellows were
+all wild about her, and--well, you know yourself how such things go. I
+can't see now what it was that I fancied so much about her, I don't
+suppose I could have told exactly at the time; but I can tell without
+the smallest trouble what it is in--the other."
+
+"In Katy? I should think so," cried Mrs. Ashe, emphatically; "the two
+are no more to be compared than--than--well, bread and syllabub! You can
+live on one, and you can't live on the other."
+
+"Come, now, Miss Page isn't so bad as that. She is a nice girl enough,
+and a pretty girl too,--prettier than Katy; I'm not so far gone that I
+can't see that. But we won't talk about her, she's not in the present
+question at all; very likely she'd have had nothing to say to me in any
+case. I was only one out of a dozen, and she never gave me reason to
+suppose that she cared more for me than the rest. Let us talk about this
+friend of yours; have I any chance at all, do you think, Polly?"
+
+"Ned, you are the dearest boy! I would rather have Katy for a sister
+than any one else I know. She's so nice all through,--so true and sweet
+and satisfactory."
+
+"She is all that and more; she's a woman to tie to for life, to be
+perfectly sure of always. She would make a splendid wife for any man.
+I'm not half good enough for her; but the question is,--and you haven't
+answered it yet, Polly,--what's my chance?"
+
+"I don't know," said his sister, slowly.
+
+"Then I must ask herself, and I shall do so to-day."
+
+"I don't know," repeated Mrs. Ashe. "'She is a woman, therefore to be
+won:' and I don't think there is any one ahead of you; that is the best
+hope I have to offer, Ned. Katy never talks of such things; and though
+she's so frank, I can't guess whether or not she ever thinks about them.
+She likes you, however, I am sure of that. But, Ned, it will not be wise
+to say anything to her yet."
+
+"Not say anything? Why not?"
+
+"No. Recollect that it is only a little while since she looked upon you
+as the admirer of another girl, and a girl she doesn't like very much,
+though they are cousins. You must give her time to get over that
+impression. Wait awhile; that's my advice, Ned."
+
+"I'll wait any time if only she will say yes in the end. But it's hard
+to go away without a word of hope, and it's more like a man to speak
+out, it seems to me."
+
+"It's too soon," persisted his sister. "You don't want her to think
+you a fickle fellow, falling in love with a fresh girl every time you
+go into port, and falling out again when the ship sails. Sailors have
+a bad reputation for that sort of thing. No woman cares to win a man
+like that."
+
+"Great Scott! I should think not! Do you mean to say that is the way my
+conduct appears to her, Polly ?"
+
+"No, I don't mean just that; but wait, dear Ned, I am sure it is
+better."
+
+Fortified by this sage counsel, Lieutenant Worthington went away next
+morning, without saying anything to Katy in words, though perhaps eyes
+and tones may have been less discreet. He made them promise that some
+one should send a letter every day about Amy; and as Mrs. Ashe
+frequently devolved the writing of these bulletins upon Katy, and the
+replies came in the shape of long letters, she found herself conducting
+a pretty regular correspondence without quite intending it. Ned
+Worthington wrote particularly nice letters. He had the knack, more
+often found in women than men, of giving a picture with a few graphic
+touches, and indicating what was droll or what was characteristic with
+a single happy phrase. His letters grew to be one of Katy's pleasures;
+and sometimes, as Mrs. Ashe watched the color deepen in her cheeks
+while she read, her heart would bound hopefully within her. But she was
+a wise woman in her way, and she wanted Katy for a sister very much; so
+she never said a word or looked a look to startle or surprise her, but
+left the thing to work itself out, which is the best course always in
+love affairs.
+
+Little Amy's improvement at Albano was something remarkable. Mrs. Swift
+watched over her like a lynx. Her vigilance never relaxed. Amy was made
+to eat and sleep and walk and rest with the regularity of a machine; and
+this exact system, combined with the good air, worked like a charm. The
+little one gained hour by hour. They could absolutely see her growing
+fat, her mother declared. Fevers, when they do not kill, operate
+sometimes as spring bonfires do in gardens, burning up all the refuse
+and leaving the soil free for the growth of fairer things; and Amy
+promised in time to be only the better and stronger for her hard
+experience.
+
+She had gained so much before the time came to start for Florence, that
+they scarcely dreaded the journey; but it proved worse than their
+expectations. They had not been able to secure a carriage to themselves,
+and were obliged to share their compartment with two English ladies, and
+three Roman Catholic priests, one old, the others young. The older
+priest seemed to be a person of some consequence; for quite a number of
+people came to see him off, and knelt for his blessing devoutly as the
+train moved away. The younger ones Katy guessed to be seminary students
+under his charge. Her chief amusement through the long dusty journey was
+in watching the terrible time that one of these young men was having
+with his own hat. It was a large three-cornered black affair, with sharp
+angles and excessively stiff; and a perpetual struggle seemed to be
+going on between it and its owner, who was evidently unhappy when it was
+on his head and still more unhappy when it was anywhere else. If he
+perched it on his knees it was sure to slide away from him and fall with
+a thump on the floor, whereupon he would pick it up, blushing furiously
+as he did so. Then he would lay it on the seat when the train stopped at
+a station, and jump out with an air of relief; but he invariably forgot,
+and sat down upon it when he returned, and sprang up with a look of
+horror at the loud crackle it made; after which he would tuck it into
+the baggage-rack overhead, from which it would presently descend,
+generally into the lap of one of the staid English ladies, who would
+hand it back to him with an air of deep offence, remarking to her
+companion,--
+
+"I never knew anything like it. Fancy! that makes four times that hat
+has fallen on me. The young man is a feedgit! He's the most feegitty
+creature I ever saw in my life."
+
+The young _seminariat_ did not understand a word she said; but the
+tone needed no interpreter, and set him to blushing more painfully than
+ever. Altogether, the hat was never off his mind for a moment. Katy
+could see that he was thinking about it, even when he was thumbing his
+Breviary and making believe to read.
+
+At last the train, steaming down the valley of the Arno, revealed fair
+Florence sitting among olive-clad hills, with Giotto's beautiful
+Bell-tower, and the great, many-colored, soft-hued Cathedral, and the
+square tower of the old Palace, and the quaint bridges over the river,
+looking exactly as they do in the photographs; and Katy would have felt
+delighted, in spite of dust and fatigue, had not Amy looked so worn out
+and exhausted. They were seriously troubled about her, and for the
+moment could think of nothing else. Happily the fatigue did no permanent
+harm, and a day or two of rest made her all right again. By good
+fortune, a nice little apartment in the modern quarter of the city had
+been vacated by its winter occupants the very day of their arrival, and
+Mrs. Ashe secured it for a month, with all its conveniences and
+advantages, including a maid named Maria, who had been servant to the
+just departed tenants.
+
+Maria was a very tall woman, at least six feet two, and had a splendid
+contralto voice, which she occasionally exercised while busy over her
+pots and pans. It was so remarkable to hear these grand arias and
+recitatives proceeding from a kitchen some eight feet square, that Katy
+was at great pains to satisfy her curiosity about it. By aid of the
+dictionary and much persistent questioning, she made out that Maria in
+her youth had received a partial training for the opera; but in the end
+it was decided that she was too big and heavy for the stage, and the
+poor "giantess," as Amy named her, had been forced to abandon her
+career, and gradually had sunk to the position of a maid-of-all-work.
+Katy suspected that heaviness of mind as well as of body must have stood
+in her way; for Maria, though a good-natured giantess, was by no means
+quick of intelligence.
+
+"I do think that the manner in which people over here can make homes for
+themselves at five minutes' notice is perfectly delightful," cried Katy,
+at the end of their first day's housekeeping. "I wish we could do the
+same in America. How cosy it looks here already!"
+
+It was indeed cosy. Their new domain consisted of a parlor in a corner,
+furnished in bright yellow brocade, with windows to south and west; a
+nice little dining-room; three bedrooms, with dimity-curtained beds; a
+square entrance hall, lighted at night by a tall slender brass lamp
+whose double wicks were fed with olive oil; and the aforesaid tiny
+kitchen, behind which was a sleeping cubby, quite too small to be a good
+fit for the giantess. The rooms were full of conveniences,--easy-chairs,
+sofas, plenty of bureaus and dressing-tables, and corner fireplaces like
+Franklin stoves, in which odd little fires burned on cool days, made of
+pine cones, cakes of pressed sawdust exactly like Boston brown bread cut
+into slices, and a few sticks of wood thriftily adjusted, for fuel is
+worth its weight in gold in Florence. Katy's was the smallest of the
+bedrooms, but she liked it best of all for the reason that its one big
+window opened on an iron balcony over which grew a Banksia rose-vine
+with a stem as thick as her wrist. It was covered just now with masses
+of tiny white blossoms, whose fragrance was inexpressibly delicious and
+made every breath drawn in their neighborhood a delight. The sun
+streamed in on all sides of the little apartment, which filled a
+narrowing angle at the union of three streets; and from one window and
+another, glimpses could be caught of the distant heights about the
+city,--San Miniato in one direction, Bellosguardo in another, and for
+the third the long olive-hung ascent of Fiesole, crowned by its gray
+cathedral towers.
+
+It was astonishing how easily everything fell into train about the
+little establishment. Every morning at six the English baker left two
+small sweet brown loaves and a dozen rolls at the door. Then followed
+the dairyman with a supply of tiny leaf-shaped pats of freshly churned
+butter, a big flask of milk, and two small bottles of thick cream, with
+a twist of vine leaf in each by way of a cork. Next came a _contadino_
+with a flask of red Chianti wine, a film of oil floating on top to keep
+it sweet. People in Florence must drink wine, whether they like it or
+not, because the lime-impregnated water is unsafe for use without some
+admixture.
+
+Dinner came from a _trattoria_, in a tin box, with a pan of coals inside
+to keep it warm, which box was carried on a man's head. It was furnished
+at a fixed price per day,--a soup, two dishes of meat, two vegetables,
+and a sweet dish; and the supply was so generous as always to leave
+something toward next day's luncheon. Salad, fruit, and fresh eggs Maria
+bought for them in the old market. From the confectioners came loaves of
+_pane santo_, a sort of light cake made with arrowroot instead of flour;
+and sometimes, by way of treat, a square of _pan forte da Siena_,
+compounded of honey, almonds, and chocolate,--a mixture as pernicious
+as it is delicious, and which might take a medal anywhere for the sure
+production of nightmares.
+
+Amy soon learned to know the shops from which these delicacies came.
+She had her favorites, too, among the strolling merchants who sold
+oranges and those little sweet native figs, dried in the sun without
+sugar, which are among the specialties of Florence. They, in their
+turn, learned to know her and to watch for the appearance of her little
+capped head and Mabel's blond wig at the window, lingering about till
+she came, and advertising their wares with musical modulations, so
+appealing that Amy was always running to Katy, who acted as
+housekeeper, to beg her to please buy this or that, "because it is my
+old man, and he wants me to so much."
+
+"But, chicken, we have plenty of figs for to-day."
+
+"No matter; get some more, please do. I'll eat them all; really, I
+will."
+
+And Amy was as good as her word. Her convalescent appetite was something
+prodigious.
+
+There was another branch of shopping in which they all took equal
+delight. The beauty and the cheapness of the Florence flowers are a
+continual surprise to a stranger. Every morning after breakfast an old
+man came creaking up the two long flights of stairs which led to Mrs.
+Ashe's apartment, tapped at the door, and as soon as it opened, inserted
+a shabby elbow and a large flat basket full of flowers. Such flowers!
+Great masses of scarlet and cream-colored tulips, and white and gold
+narcissus, knots of roses of all shades, carnations, heavy-headed trails
+of wistaria, wild hyacinths, violets, deep crimson and orange
+ranunculus, _giglios_, or wild irises,--the Florence emblem, so deeply
+purple as to be almost black,--anemones, spring-beauties, faintly tinted
+wood-blooms tied in large loose nosegays, ivy, fruit
+blossoms,--everything that can be thought of that is fair and sweet.
+These enticing wares the old man would tip out on the table. Mrs. Ashe
+and Katy would select what they wanted, and then the process of
+bargaining would begin, without which no sale is complete in Italy. The
+old man would name an enormous price, five times as much as he hoped to
+get. Katy would offer a very small one, considerably less than she
+expected to give. The old man would dance with dismay, wring his hands,
+assure them that he should die of hunger and all his family with him if
+he took less than the price named; he would then come down half a franc
+in his demand. So it would go on for five minutes, ten, sometimes for a
+quarter of an hour, the old man's price gradually descending, and Katy's
+terms very slowly going up, a cent or two at a time. Next the giantess
+would mingle with the fray. She would bounce out of her kitchen, berate
+the flower-vender, snatch up his flowers, declare that they smelt badly,
+fling them down again, pouring out all the while a voluble tirade of
+reproaches and revilings, and looking so enormous in her excitement that
+Katy wondered that the old man dared to answer her at all. Finally,
+there would be a sudden lull. The old man would shrug his shoulders, and
+remarking that he and his wife and his aged grandmother must go without
+bread that day since it was the Signora's will, take the money offered
+and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would
+begin to think that they had paid an unfair price for them and to feel a
+little rueful, till she observed that the old man was absolutely dancing
+downstairs with rapture over the good bargain he had made, and that
+Maria was black with indignation over the extravagance of her ladies!
+
+"The Americani are a nation of spend-thrifts," she would mutter to
+herself, as she quickened the charcoal in her droll little range by
+fanning it with a palm-leaf fan; "they squander money like water. Well,
+all the better for us Italians!" with a shrug of her shoulders.
+
+"But, Maria, it was only sixteen cents that we paid, and look at those
+flowers! There are at least half a bushel of them."
+
+"Sixteen cents for garbage like that! The Signorina would better let me
+make her bargains for her. _Già! Già!_ No Italian lady would have paid
+more than eleven sous for such useless _roba_. It is evident that the
+Signorina's countrymen eat gold when at home, they think so little of
+casting it away!"
+
+Altogether, what with the comfort and quiet of this little home, the
+numberless delightful things that there were to do and to see, and
+Viessieux's great library, from which they could draw books at will
+to make the doing and seeing more intelligible, the month at
+Florence passed only too quickly, and was one of the times to which
+they afterward looked back with most pleasure. Amy grew steadily
+stronger, and the freedom from anxiety about her after their long
+strain of apprehension was restful and healing beyond expression to
+both mind and body.
+
+Their very last excursion of all, and one of the pleasantest, was to the
+old amphitheatre at Fiesole; and it was while they sat there in the soft
+glow of the late afternoon, tying into bunches the violets which they
+had gathered from under walls whose foundations antedate Rome itself,
+that a cheery call sounded from above, and an unexpected surprise
+descended upon them in the shape of Lieutenant Worthington, who having
+secured another fifteen days' furlough, had come to take his sister on
+to Venice.
+
+"I didn't write you that I had applied for leave," he explained,
+"because there seemed so little chance of my getting off again so soon;
+but as luck had it, Carruthers, whose turn it was, sprained his ankle
+and was laid up, and the Commodore let us exchange. I made all the
+capital I could out of Amy's fever; but upon my word, I felt like a
+humbug when I came upon her and Mrs. Swift in the Cascine just now, as I
+was hunting for you. How she has picked up! I should never have known
+her for the same child."
+
+"Yes, she seems perfectly well again, and as strong as before she had
+the fever, though that dear old Goody Swift is just as careful of her as
+ever. She would not let us bring her here this afternoon, for fear we
+should stay out till the dew fell. Ned, it is perfectly delightful that
+you were able to come. It makes going to Venice seem quite a different
+thing, doesn't it, Katy?"
+
+"I don't want it to seem quite different, because going to Venice was
+always one of my dreams," replied Katy, with a little laugh.
+
+"I hope at least it doesn't make it seem less pleasant," said Mr.
+Worthington, as his sister stopped to pick a violet.
+
+"No, indeed, I am glad," said Katy; "we shall all be seeing it for
+the first time, too, shall we not? I think you said you had never
+been there." She spoke simply and frankly, but she was conscious of
+an odd shyness.
+
+"I simply couldn't stand it any longer," Ned Worthington confided to his
+sister when they were alone. "My head is so full of her that I can't
+attend to my work, and it came to me all of a sudden that this might be
+my last chance. You'll be getting north before long, you know, to
+Switzerland and so on, where I cannot follow you. So I made a clean
+breast of it to the Commodore; and the good old fellow, who has a soft
+spot in his heart for a love-story, behaved like a brick, and made it
+all straight for me to come away."
+
+Mrs. Ashe did not join in these commendations of the Commodore; her
+attention was fixed on another part of her brother's discourse.
+
+"Then you won't be able to come to me again? I sha'n't see you again
+after this!" she exclaimed. "Dear me! I never realized that before. What
+shall I do without you?"
+
+"You will have Miss Carr. She is a host in herself," suggested Ned
+Worthington. His sister shook her head.
+
+"Katy is a jewel," she remarked presently; "but somehow one wants a man
+to call upon. I shall feel lost without you, Ned."
+
+The month's housekeeping wound up that night with a "thick tea" in honor
+of Lieutenant Worthington's arrival, which taxed all the resources of
+the little establishment. Maria was sent out hastily to buy _pan forte
+da Siena_ and _vino d'Asti_, and fresh eggs for an omelette, and
+chickens' breasts smothered in cream from the restaurant, and artichokes
+for a salad, and flowers to garnish all; and the guest ate and praised
+and admired; and Amy and Mabel sat on his knee and explained everything
+to him, and they were all very happy together. Their merriment was so
+infectious that it extended to the poor giantess, who had been very
+pensive all day at the prospect of losing her good place, and who now
+raised her voice in the grand aria from "Orfeo," and made the kitchen
+ring with the passionate demand "Che farò senza Eurydice?" The splendid
+notes, full of fire and lamentation, rang out across the saucepans as
+effectively as if they had been footlights; and Katy, rising softly,
+opened the kitchen door a little way that they might not lose a sound.
+
+The next day brought them to Venice. It was a "moment," indeed, as Katy
+seated herself for the first time in a gondola, and looked from beneath
+its black hood at the palace walls on the Grand Canal, past which they
+were gliding. Some were creamy white and black, some orange-tawny,
+others of a dull delicious ruddy color, half pink, half red; but all, in
+build and ornament, were unlike palaces elsewhere. High on the prow
+before her stood the gondolier, his form defined in dark outline against
+the sky, as he swayed and bent to his long oar, raising his head now and
+again to give a wild musical cry, as warning to other approaching
+gondolas. It was all like a dream. Ned Worthington sat beside her,
+looking more at the changes in her expressive face than at the palaces.
+Venice was as new to him as to Katy; but she was a new feature in his
+life also, and even more interesting than Venice. They seemed to float
+on pleasures for the next ten days. Their arrival had been happily timed
+to coincide with a great popular festival which for nearly a week kept
+Venice in a state of continual brilliant gala. All the days were spent
+on the water, only landing now and then to look at some famous building
+or picture, or to eat ices in the Piazza with the lovely façade of St.
+Mark's before them. Dining or sleeping seemed a sheer waste of time! The
+evenings were spent on the water too; for every night, immediately after
+sunset, a beautiful drifting pageant started from the front of the
+Doge's Palace to make the tour of the Grand Canal, and our friends
+always took a part in it. In its centre went a barge hung with
+embroideries and filled with orange trees and musicians. This was
+surrounded by a great convoy of skiffs and gondolas bearing colored
+lanterns and pennons and gay awnings, and managed by gondoliers in
+picturesque uniforms. All these floated and shifted and swept on
+together with a sort of rhythmic undulation as if keeping time to the
+music, while across their path dazzling showers and arches of colored
+fire poured from the palace fronts and the hotels. Every movement of the
+fairy flotilla was repeated in the illuminated water, every torch-tip
+and scarlet lantern and flake of green or rosy fire; above all the
+bright full moon looked down as if surprised. It was magically beautiful
+in effect. Katy felt as if her previous sober ideas about life and
+things had melted away. For the moment the world was turned topsy-turvy.
+There was nothing hard or real or sordid left in it; it was just a fairy
+tale, and she was in the middle of it as she had longed to be in her
+childhood. She was the Princess, encircled by delights, as when she and
+Clover and Elsie played in "Paradise,"--only, this was better; and, dear
+me! who was this Prince who seemed to belong to the story and to grow
+more important to it every day?
+
+Fairy tales must come to ending. Katy's last chapter closed with a
+sudden turn-over of the leaf when, toward the end of this happy
+fortnight, Mrs. Ashe came into her room with the face of one who has
+unpleasant news to communicate.
+
+"Katy," she began, "should you be _awfully_ disappointed, should
+you consider me a perfect wretch, if I went home now instead of in
+the autumn?"
+
+Katy was too much astonished to reply.
+
+"I am grown such a coward, I am so knocked up and weakened by what I
+suffered in Rome, that I find I cannot face the idea of going on to
+Germany and Switzerland alone, without Ned to take care of me. You are a
+perfect angel, dear, and I know that you would do all you could to make
+it easy for me, but I am such a fool that I do not dare. I think my
+nerves must have given way," she continued half tearfully; "but the very
+idea of shifting for myself for five months longer makes me so miserably
+homesick that I cannot endure it. I dare say I shall repent afterward,
+and I tell myself now how silly it is; but it's no use,--I shall never
+know another easy moment till I have Amy safe again in America and under
+your father's care."
+
+"I find," she continued after another little pause, "that we can go down
+with Ned to Genoa and take a steamer there which will carry us straight
+to New York without any stops. I hate to disappoint you dreadfully,
+Katy, but I have almost decided to do it. Shall you mind very much? Can
+you ever forgive me?" She was fairly crying now.
+
+Katy had to swallow hard before she could answer, the sense of
+disappointment was so sharp; and with all her efforts there was almost a
+sob in her voice as she said,--
+
+"Why yes, indeed, dear Polly, there is nothing to forgive. You are
+perfectly right to go home if you feel so." Then with another swallow
+she added: "You have given me the loveliest six months' treat that ever
+was, and I should be a greedy girl indeed if I found fault because it is
+cut off a little sooner than we expected."
+
+"You are so dear and good not to be vexed," said her friend, embracing
+her. "It makes me feel doubly sorry about disappointing you. Indeed I
+wouldn't if I could help it, but I simply can't. I _must_ go home.
+Perhaps we'll come back some day when Amy is grown up, or safely married
+to somebody who will take good care of her!"
+
+This distant prospect was but a poor consolation for the immediate
+disappointment. The more Katy thought about it the sorrier did she feel.
+It was not only losing the chance--very likely the only one she would
+ever have--of seeing Switzerland and Germany; it was all sorts of other
+little things besides. They must go home in a strange ship with a
+captain they did not know, instead of in the "Spartacus," as they had
+planned; and they should land in New York, where no one would be waiting
+for them, and not have the fun of sailing into Boston Bay and seeing
+Rose on the wharf, where she had promised to be. Furthermore, they must
+pass the hot summer in Burnet instead of in the cool Alpine valleys; and
+Polly's house was let till October. She and Amy would have to shift for
+themselves elsewhere. Perhaps they would not be in Burnet at all. Oh
+dear, what a pity it was! what a dreadful pity!
+
+Then, the first shock of surprise and discomfiture over, other ideas
+asserted themselves; and as she realized that in three weeks more, or
+four at the longest, she was to see papa and Clover and all her dear
+people at home, she began to feel so very glad that she could hardly
+wait for the time to come. After all, there was nothing in Europe quite
+so good as that.
+
+"No, I'm not sorry," she told herself; "I am glad. Poor Polly! it's no
+wonder she feels nervous after all she has gone through. I hope I wasn't
+cross to her! And it will be _very_ nice to have Lieutenant Worthington
+to take care of us as far as Genoa."
+
+The next three days were full of work. There was no more floating in
+gondolas, except in the way of business. All the shopping which they had
+put off must be done, and the trunks packed for the voyage. Every one
+recollected last errands and commissions; there was continual coming and
+going and confusion, and Amy, wild with excitement, popping up every
+other moment in the midst of it all, to demand of everybody if they were
+not glad that they were going back to America.
+
+Katy had never yet bought her gift from old Mrs. Redding. She had
+waited, thinking continually that she should see something more tempting
+still in the next place they went to; but now, with the sense that there
+were to be no more "next places," she resolved to wait no longer, and
+with a hundred francs in her pocket, set forth to choose something from
+among the many tempting things for sale in the Piazza. A bracelet of old
+Roman coins had caught her fancy one day in a bric-à-brac shop, and she
+walked straight toward it, only pausing by the way to buy a pale blue
+iridescent pitcher at Salviate's for Cecy Slack, and see it carefully
+rolled in seaweed and soft paper.
+
+The price of the bracelet was a little more than she expected, and quite
+a long process of bargaining was necessary to reduce it to the sum she
+had to spend. She had just succeeded and was counting out the money when
+Mrs. Ashe and her brother appeared, having spied her from the opposite
+side of the Piazza, where they were choosing last photographs at Naga's.
+Katy showed her purchase and explained that it was a present; "for of
+course I should never walk out in cold blood and buy a bracelet for
+myself," she said with a laugh.
+
+"This is a fascinating little shop," said Mrs. Ashe. "I wonder
+what is the price of that queer old chatelaine with the bottles
+hanging from it."
+
+The price was high; but Mrs. Ashe was now tolerably conversant with
+shopping Italian, which consists chiefly of a few words repeated many
+times over, and it lowered rapidly under the influence of her _troppo's_
+and _è molto caro's_, accompanied with telling little shrugs and looks
+of surprise. In the end she bought it for less than two thirds of what
+had been originally asked for it. As she put the parcel in her pocket,
+her brother said,--
+
+"If you have done your shopping now, Polly, can't you come out for a
+last row?"
+
+"Katy may, but I can't," replied Mrs. Ashe. "The man promised to bring
+me gloves at six o'clock, and I must be there to pay for them. Take
+her down to the Lido, Ned. It's an exquisite evening for the water,
+and the sunset promises to be delicious. You can take the time, can't
+you, Katy?"
+
+Katy could.
+
+Mrs. Ashe turned to leave them, but suddenly stopped short.
+
+"Katy, look! Isn't that a picture!"
+
+The "picture" was Amy, who had come to the Piazza with Mrs. Swift, to
+feed the doves of St. Mark's, which was one of her favorite amusements.
+These pretty birds are the pets of all Venice, and so accustomed to
+being fondled and made much of by strangers, that they are perfectly
+tame. Amy, when her mother caught sight of her, was sitting on the
+marble pavement, with one on her shoulder, two perched on the edge of
+her lap, which was full of crumbs, and a flight of others circling round
+her head. She was looking up and calling them in soft tones. The
+sunlight caught the little downy curls on her head and made them
+glitter. The flying doves lit on the pavement, and crowded round her,
+their pearl and gray and rose-tinted and white feathers, their scarlet
+feet and gold-ringed eyes, making a shifting confusion of colors, as
+they hopped and fluttered and cooed about the little maid, unstartled
+even by her clear laughter. Close by stood Nurse Swift, observant and
+grimly pleased.
+
+The mother looked on with happy tears in her eyes. "Oh, Katy, think
+what she was a few weeks ago and look at her now! Can I ever be
+thankful enough?"
+
+She squeezed Katy's hand convulsively and walked away, turning her head
+now and then for another glance at Amy and the doves; while Ned and Katy
+silently crossed to the landing and got into a gondola. It was the
+perfection of a Venice evening, with silver waves lapsing and lulling
+under a rose and opal sky; and the sense that it was their last row on
+those enchanted waters made every moment seem doubly precious.
+
+I cannot tell you exactly what it was that Ned Worthington said to Katy
+during that row, or why it took so long to say it that they did not get
+in till after the sun was set, and the stars had come out to peep at
+their bright, glinting faces, reflected in the Grand Canal. In fact, no
+one can tell; for no one overheard, except Giacomo, the brown
+yellow-jacketed gondolier, and as he did not understand a word of
+English he could not repeat the conversation. Venetian boatmen, however,
+know pretty well what it means when a gentleman and lady, both young,
+find so much to say in low tones to each other under the gondola hood,
+and are so long about giving the order to return; and Giacomo, deeply
+sympathetic, rowed as softly and made himself as imperceptible as he
+could,--a display of tact which merited the big silver piece with which
+Lieutenant Worthington "crossed his palm" on landing.
+
+Mrs. Ashe had begun to look for them long before they appeared, but I
+think she was neither surprised nor sorry that they were so late. Katy
+kissed her hastily and went away at once,--"to pack," she said,--and
+Ned was equally undemonstrative; but they looked so happy, both of them,
+that "Polly dear" was quite satisfied and asked no questions.
+
+Five days later the parting came, when the "Florio" steamer put into the
+port of Genoa for passengers. It was not an easy good-by to say. Mrs.
+Ashe and Amy both cried, and Mabel was said to be in deep affliction
+also. But there were alleviations. The squadron was coming home in the
+autumn, and the officers would have leave to see their friends, and of
+course Lieutenant Worthington must come to Burnet--to visit his sister.
+Five months would soon go, he declared; but for all the cheerful
+assurance, his face was rueful enough as he held Katy's hand in a long
+tight clasp while the little boat waited to take him ashore.
+
+After that it was just a waiting to be got through with till they
+sighted Sandy Hook and the Neversinks,--a waiting varied with peeps at
+Marseilles and Gibraltar and the sight of a whale or two and one distant
+iceberg. The weather was fair all the way, and the ocean smooth. Amy was
+never weary of lamenting her own stupidity in not having taken Maria
+Matilda out of confinement before they left Venice.
+
+"That child has hardly been out of the trunk since we started," she
+said. "She hasn't seen anything except a little bit of Nice. I shall
+really be ashamed when the other children ask her about it. I think I
+shall play that she was left at boarding-school and didn't come to
+Europe at all! Don't you think that would be the best way, mamma?"
+
+"You might play that she was left in the States-prison for having done
+something naughty," suggested Katy; but Amy scouted this idea.
+
+"She never does naughty things," she said, "because she never does
+anything at all. She's just stupid, poor child! It's not her fault."
+
+The thirty-six hours between New York and Burnet seemed longer than all
+the rest of the journey put together, Katy thought. But they ended at
+last, as the "Lake Queen" swung to her moorings at the familiar wharf,
+where Dr. Carr stood surrounded with all his boys and girls just as they
+had stood the previous October, only that now there were no clouds on
+anybody's face, and Johnnie was skipping up and down for joy instead of
+grief. It was a long moment while the plank was being lowered from the
+gangway; but the moment it was in place, Katy darted across, first
+ashore of all the passengers, and was in her father's arms.
+
+Mrs. Ashe and Amy spent two or three days with them, while looking up
+temporary quarters elsewhere; and so long as they stayed all seemed a
+happy confusion of talking and embracing and exclaiming, and
+distributing of gifts. After they went away things fell into their
+customary train, and a certain flatness became apparent. Everything had
+happened that could happen. The long-talked-of European journey was
+over. Here was Katy at home again, months sooner than they expected; yet
+she looked remarkably cheerful and content! Clover could not understand
+it; she was likewise puzzled to account for one or two private
+conversations between Katy and papa in which she had not been invited to
+take part, and the occasional arrival of a letter from "foreign parts"
+about whose contents nothing was said.
+
+"It seems a dreadful pity that you had to come so soon," she said one
+day when they were alone in their bedroom. "It's delightful to have you,
+of course; but we had braced ourselves to do without you till October,
+and there are such lots of delightful things that you could have been
+doing and seeing at this moment."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Katy, but not at all as if she were
+particularly disappointed.
+
+"Katy Carr, I don't understand you," persisted Clover. "Why don't you
+feel worse about it? Here you have lost five months of the most
+splendid time you ever had, and you don't seem to mind it a bit! Why,
+if I were in your place my heart would be perfectly broken. And you
+needn't have come, either; that's the worst of it. It was just a whim
+of Polly's. Papa says Amy might have stayed as well as not. Why aren't
+you sorrier, Katy?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps because I had so much as it was,--enough to
+last all my life, I think, though I _should_ like to go again. You can't
+imagine what beautiful pictures are put away in my memory."
+
+"I don't see that you had so awfully much," said the aggravated Clover;
+"you were there only a little more than six months,--for I don't count
+the sea,--and ever so much of that time was taken up with nursing Amy.
+You can't have any pleasant pictures of _that_ part of it."
+
+"Yes, I have, some."
+
+"Well, I should really like to know what. There you were in a dark room,
+frightened to death and tired to death, with only Mrs. Ashe and the old
+nurse to keep you company--Oh, yes, that brother was there part of the
+time; I forgot him--"
+
+Clover stopped short in sudden amazement. Katy was standing with her
+back toward her, smoothing her hair, but her face was reflected in the
+glass. At Clover's words a sudden deep flush had mounted in Katy's
+cheeks. Deeper and deeper it burned as she became conscious of Clover's
+astonished gaze, till even the back of her neck was pink. Then, as if
+she could not bear it any longer, she put the brush down, turned, and
+fled out of the room; while Clover, looking after her, exclaimed in a
+tone of sudden comical dismay,--
+
+"What does it mean? Oh, dear me! is that what Katy is going to do next?"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Katy Did Next, by Susan Coolidge
+
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