A journey of joy
Date: 2025-05-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction; Americans -- Europe -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: A journey of joy

Author: Amy Ella Blanchard

Illustrator: L. J. Bridgman

Release date: May 2, 2025 [eBook #75999]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1908

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNEY OF JOY ***

A Journey of Joy

“‘ISN’T IT LOVELY TO LOOK DOWN ON THE HISTORIC CITY?’”

A JOURNEY
OF JOY

BY
AMY E. BLANCHARD
Author of “Two Girls,” “Three Pretty Maids,” “A Girl of ’76,”
“Janet’s College Career,” etc.

Illustrated by
L. J. BRIDGMAN

BOSTON
DANA ESTES & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1908
By Dana Estes & Company

All rights reserved

COLONIAL PRESS

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U.S.A.

To my niece, May, whose dear companionship
added many joys to the days in which we journeyed
together, I dedicate this story.

A. E. B.

Contents

CHAPTER | PAGE
I. | Our Way across the Sea | 11
II. | Under the Walls of Paradise | 20
III. | In Honor of a Queen | 39
IV. | The Briton | 54
V. | Romances | 68
VI. | Roses | 82
VII. | “In a Gondola” | 96
VIII. | From Sea to Mountain | 110
IX. | Bells | 124
X. | “Chiefless Castles” | 141
XI. | Three Hundred Windmills | 157
XII. | A Tempest in an Ink-bottle | 173
XIII. | He Might Have Been a Russian | 187
XIV. | Whither? Together | 203
XV. | A Mediæval Town | 220
XVI. | A Good Crossing | 234
XVII. | Confessions | 248
XVIII. | St. Giles’s Fair | 263
XIX. | Skirling Pipes | 278
XX. | The Other Gentleman | 294

List of Illustrations

PAGE
“‘Isn’t it lovely to look down on the historic city?’” (See page 93) | Frontispiece
“View from the monastery” | 58
“The gondola drifted out upon the silent waters” | 106
“‘Here, here,’ called Miss Cavendish, ‘you are missing all the beautiful scenery’” | 150
“‘It is a very important city, historically, commercially and artistically’” | 174
“‘There is a little old church next to Crosby Hall ... and we shall want to see that’” | 239
“They were rewarded by sight of a company under inspection” | 275

A Journey of Joy

CHAPTER I
OUR WAY ACROSS THE SEA

It was the close of a gusty day in late November when two persons sat watching the early dusk close down upon the outside world. A long line of light still lingered behind the purple hills upon which there stood out a few houses silhouetted against the primrose yellow of the sky. Within the nearer confines of the lawn the leafless trees looked dim and shadowy. The whirl of eddying leaves against the wall sounded ghostly, and the rattling of the vines against the side of the house suggested wintriness.

“And in Italy,” murmured the elder of the two women, “it will be all sunshine and light.”

“Italy?” There was a question in her companion’s voice.

“Yes, I am going there.”

“Alone? You surely are not going alone.”

“No, Sidney is going with me.”

“Sidney? Oh, I am jealous,” the girl responded petulantly. “As if it were not enough that Sidney has a grandfather with lashings of money, a beautiful home, a devoted brother, an indulgent mother, while I am a poverty-stricken wretch whose blessed little mother must turn and twist and contrive to make both ends meet;—as if all this were not enough but you, my own godmother, who is mine by birthright, must be spirited away from me for a mess of pottage,—for pottage read spaghetti; that’s what they live on in Italy, I believe,—and I must sit and smile during the process of spiriting.”

“But Gabriella, dear, Sidney is also my goddaughter.”

“Yes, worse luck; I always did hate her for it.”

“Gabriella! you do no such thing. You are devoted to Sidney.”

“I might be if she were not so aggressively well off.”

“She is the least aggressive person I know. You rarely find a more simple-hearted girl.”

“Clothe her in hand-me-downs, and she might be, but exaggerated wealth stands out in her tailor-made gowns and her hats.”

“That is where you err; the tailor-made gowns do not add one iota to her figure, and the hats are never becoming.”

Gabriella did not heed the interruption. “And in her furs and feathers and jewelry—”

“Which she never wears obtrusively. She will display no jewels on our travels, I can assure you. Don’t be cantankerous, Gabriella.”

“Oh, I must be. I always have had a grudge against Sidney since the day we were christened at the same font and she behaved so beautifully while I yelled like sin. Even then I must have had a foreknowledge of what our relative positions in life would be.”

“You are the silliest child, Gabriella.”

“But in spite of that fact you love me, don’t you, Gem?”

“Of course I do, and that is why I am going to take you abroad with me.”

“Dearest Gem, is this a make-believe such as you are so fond of getting up at this charmed hour, or have you suddenly fallen heir to a fortune, or what? Please explain yourself. When you speak in that assured manner of taking me to Europe I feel myself getting weak in the knees.”

Miss Cavendish laughed. “Will you positively go with me, Gabriella?”

“Will a duck swim? Oh, Gem of purest ray serene, do tell me what you are driving at. Speak seriously as one who would not trifle with sacred things. Please don’t be frivolous where such a subject is concerned. Sidney as Sidney is bad enough, but Sidney and you and Europe; I cannot endure the combination.”

Miss Cavendish leaned back in her chair and fixed her eyes upon the distant hills, now an irregular line against the fast-fading primrose yellow. “You know, Gabriella,” she began, “I have been thinking for a long time of going to Europe, but I didn’t want to go alone and I didn’t want to go with a casual companion. A dozen friends and acquaintances have proposed my joining some special party, but, my dear, there is no undertaking in life, except marriage, which involves such nicety of choice as the selection of a travelling companion. One is too fussy, another too delicate, a third interested in exactly the opposite things to those which interest you, still another cannot endure pensions but insists upon hotels, or perhaps is nothing of a pedestrian but must take a carriage everywhere, and so on. I never realized how many objections could arise till I gave careful consideration to the merits and demerits of my various acquaintances. So the more I thought the matter over the more I felt inclined to venture alone with Sidney, if she would go, and you, if you could be persuaded to leave your native land.”

“Persuaded!” ejaculated Gabriella under her breath.

“So then,” Miss Cavendish continued, “although I know but little French, less German and no Italian, I am not afraid to personally conduct our small party. I believe we could travel more cheaply than if we were to join a company of regulation tourists; certainly we could be more independent, and the opportunity for adventure would be unlimited. When I broached my plan to Sidney,—you know I spent Thanksgiving with the Shaws,—she was most enthusiastic, and though I made certain stipulations, she agreed to everything and is in a state of great excitement over the prospect. Since her mother has never felt that there was a time that she could leave old Mr. Shaw, Sidney has yet to take her first trip abroad. Mrs. Shaw declares she would not willingly trust her with anyone but me, and Sidney has agreed to travel in my way, that is in a very economical manner which involves no superfluous expenditures, unless they be of a purely personal nature. So, you see, my dear, we shall all be on exactly the same footing.”

“Rather nice of Sid to agree to that, considering what she has to spend. But I don’t yet see my place in this scheme of things.”

“You will see,” Miss Cavendish went on. “I have been looking up travelling rates and pensions and Baedekers, so, with this, that and the other, I know pretty well what can be done, and I believe a thousand dollars will cover our expenses for six months and give us a very good time.”

“A thousand dollars apiece, you mean?”

“No, a thousand dollars for the two of us. It will be cheaper for two to travel together than for one, and cheaper still for three. I don’t suppose that amount will buy us many Paris gowns or much Brussels lace, but I am pretty sure it will cover all but the luxuries. Now, I have the thousand dollars which I have set aside for this trip, and I shall be much happier if I can take both my goddaughters with me. Will you go?”

“But dearest, it seems perfectly sinful to spend all that money on me. Are you sure you ought to do it?”

“I’m very sure that I’d rather stay over there six months with you and Sidney than to go by myself, and I am also sure that I would much prefer your society to that of a party of strangers whose doxies might not be my doxies. When I mentioned your going to Sidney she was delighted. She spoke much more sweetly of you than you of her, though she does envy you your ready wit, your looks and your general adaptability.”

“I’ll sell them all for her ducats.”

“Because you know you can’t.”

“Sidney is a dear; I always loved her.”

“A moment ago you always hated her.”

“That was because I saw everything being poured into her lap. Now that I am to share her good times I love her. I love everybody. I love everything to the meanest worm that crawls. I never knew before what a broadly charitable spirit I possessed. It is a beautiful world and I well know that the loveliest spot in the universe is Italy. When do you think of sailing, Gem, dear?”

“About the middle of March.”

“And what shall I need?”

“I intend to take only such clothing as shall be necessary for three months travel through Italy and Switzerland. This can all be stowed away in a small hand trunk which will not have to be registered as we can carry it from place to place without having it put in the baggage car, or the luggage van, as they will call it. It can be toted across platforms by a porter who will put it in the rack over our heads and there it will be in plain sight all the way. One steamer trunk will do for the two of us; it can be stored, and be sent to us when we need it for our return trip. When we get to Paris, if fripperies so possess our souls that we need room for them, we can easily buy a light wicker trunk. I must confess to indulging in an anticipation of doing that very thing.”

“How delightful it all sounds,” said Gabriella, hugging her knees. “Are you sure it is not a make-believe; one of those lovely twilight dreams you always have been so fond of summoning for my entertainment, especially when I used to call you Auntie Belle, and before I discovered that you were a true gem. What a happy discovery it was when I grew so big that to call a woman fifteen years my senior, godmother seemed ridiculous, and I cut it down to G. M., which to my delight one day resolved itself into Gem. It is the nicest name in the world and just suits you, for if ever there were a gem it is you, dearest Isabella Cavendish, Auntie Belle, godmother, Gem. What a dear you have been to me ever since I got red in the face and doubled up my fists as if to fight the world, the flesh and the devil bodily, while I howled lustily in the arms of dear little Belle Cavendish, who had made my christening robe and who held me tight in spite of my squirmings and battlings with my mottled pink fists. Oh, I can see it all. I can see us later, too, when I was a witch of three, you a dainty young lady of eighteen, who used to take me to see good little Sidney Shaw. I can remember climbing all over you and weeping on your silken shoulder because Sidney would not let me wash her face. I can remember the hoodlum at eight, too, when I came to your house and slid down the haircloth cushions of the sofa till cushions and I came to the floor together and I knocked out a tooth which for days I had refused to have drawn though it fairly waggled with looseness. I can remember how dear you were to me that day; in fact there are days all along when you have pulled me out of difficulties and have stablished my goings, and now comes the crowning act of all. If I tried to thank you in the right way I couldn’t do it. All my thanks are inside, but they choke me when I try to say them.”

“Don’t try to say them, then. Suppose we light up and look over that pile of folders and plans on my desk. I purpose sailing by way of the Mediterranean directly to Naples. It will not be so cold nor so rough as the northern route.”

“Spring in Italy! Oh, goddess mother, you are indeed a fairy godmother.”

Miss Cavendish laughed. “What a contradiction of terms. If you lose your wits at this early stage of the proceedings, what will you do when we are really landed at Naples?”

“Oh, it sounds so delicious. I am actually cold and shivery. Just wait a minute till I get my breath before we tackle that dear delightful Baedeker. How familiar it will be before we are through with it. Ah, I am glad I have not outlived my enthusiasms. Usually it is so much easier to dream than to do, but now the doing will exceed the joy of the dreaming.”

CHAPTER II
“UNDER THE WALLS OF PARADISE”

By the first of April Gabriella had viewed from the steamer’s deck her first walled town, that once famous city named for the Berber sheikh, Tarif Ibn Malek. The picturesque group of houses clustered in the curve of the strait, so situated as to command the entrance to the Mediterranean, was doubtless a piratical stronghold which made the most of its position in those old days and allowed few vessels to pass in free. This forerunner of the modern bugbear, customs, no doubt was quite as much, if not more, dreaded. It has its own history, has Tarifa. It has seen the fierce struggle between Christianity and Mohammedanism, and was witness in later battles to England’s effort to snatch Spain from the clutches of Napoleon.

“It would be a place well worth visiting,” said Miss Cavendish as Tarifa vanished from view and the dim outline of Africa’s shores seemed to melt into that of the Spanish coast. “I shall go there some day,” she added half to herself.

Then Gibraltar loomed up against so spectacular a sunset sky that, as Gabriella said, it seemed almost too stagey. “Only Nature herself would dare to use such splashes of color, such indescribable reds and pinks and yellows.” At last the glory faded into grey and the fleecy clouds huddled down on the mountain tops, like a flock of sheep going to rest for the night.

“You’ve been wanting a sensation,” said Miss Cavendish, “and I am sure nothing could be more thrilling than our first sight of Gibraltar; that mighty rock with that gorgeous sunset behind it. I, for one, shall not forget it while I live.”

“Nor I,” Gabriella hastened to say, “but I am truly glad that you did not say that frowning rock; it would have spoiled my sensations.”

“To think that we are in the Mediterranean and that yonder is Spain,” remarked Sidney; “it is very exciting.”

“Still,” returned Gabriella, “you can’t say it has been an eventful trip. This is our first excitement and we have been ten days out; not an iceberg, not an accident of any kind, not even a storm.”

“For which Heaven be thanked,” ejaculated Miss Cavendish fervently.

If Gabriella wanted excitement she had it before the next morning, for at an early hour the passengers were roused by a sudden jar, a sound of scraping along the side of the steamer, then there was the terrifying silence, which follows when the familiar throbbing of the engines ceases to be felt. Next there was a sound of running footsteps overhead, of dragging ropes and clanging bells. Gabriella made a tumultuous descent from her berth and hurried to the porthole. “What is it? What is the matter?” cried Miss Cavendish. “I must call Sidney.” She hurried into her dressing-gown and rushed to the adjoining stateroom which Sidney occupied. She found the girl gazing out of the porthole, with apparently no apprehensive fears.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said in response to Miss Cavendish’s touch upon her arm. “Just look out, Gem, and see how perfectly exquisite it is.”

“Dear me, I thought I should find you scared to death,” said Miss Cavendish. “Is there really nothing wrong, Sidney?”

“No, I can’t discover that there is. Just see that sky and that little ship and all.”

Miss Cavendish looked out upon a scene of wonderful beauty. Overhead where the sky was deeply blue, a waning moon swam like a galley with prow high in air. In the east there was a faint flush of dawn rosily pink toward the horizon, while midway toward the zenith a great silver star cast its beams upon the deep blue waters below. At a little distance from the steamer lay a white sailing vessel like a wounded bird. From the fact that a small boat was hastily making its way toward it, the passengers gathered that something had happened to the sailing vessel and a closer examination showed that the bowsprit was gone and a gaping hole was visible. Miss Cavendish returned to Gabriella. “There is nothing very much the matter,” the latter assured her. “I think we must have run down that poor little schooner. She seems quite helpless. Look, Gem, at the rows of heads poking out of the port-holes for all the world like turtles from their shells. I’ve been conversing with our next-door neighbor, and he told me what was the matter. It was great fun to watch them lower the boat. The captain and second officer went off in it to the little vessel. I hope no one was hurt.”

Later developments proved that no one was hurt, but that the vessel was disabled and must be towed back to port. “You wanted excitement and you had it,” said Sidney to Gabriella, “and now we shall be a whole day late in getting into port, though I must say I don’t care much. I wouldn’t have missed that exquisite dawn for anything, besides all day we shall have those beautiful snow-capped mountains to look at.”

“To say nothing of the thrill we received when we thought something serious had happened. I shall never forget my sensation when the engines stopped; it seemed the deadliest silence I ever experienced. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“You would be singing another tune,” said Miss Cavendish, “if you were adrift in a life-boat on this fickle Mediterranean.”

“But so long as I am not, I can rejoice at the adventure,” returned Gabriella, “for now we shall see Malaga, and I am dying to step on Spanish soil. Do you suppose they will allow us to land?”

However, though Malaga was the nearest port, the passengers did not see it that day, for by noon the schooner had been transferred to the care of a passing craft, and the travellers were again headed for Naples. They were made aware of their approach very early one morning when one of the steerage passengers rent the quiet of daybreak by a thrilling cry of “Italia!” All his heart was in his voice. He had been watching all night. Amid sunshine and flowers they landed, and were whirled to their convent pension through Naples’ picturesque streets.

“Naples may have few great buildings to display,” said Miss Cavendish, looking around critically, “and oh, what a dirty place! but such color, such motifs for pictures may well drive an artist wild. One can forgive her filth that she covers up with flowers, and who would ask for splendid architecture where there are streets like this?” She waved her hand toward a thoroughfare which was a series of steps bordered on each side by stalls crowded with masses of flowers. Overhead, on lines stretched across, dangled garments of many hues, scarlet cloths hung from the window-sills; the windows themselves were often screened by yellow or red awnings; balconies displayed pots or growing plants and trailing vines; up and down the street groups of persons or single individuals passed and repassed in constant procession; all was color, glow, sunshine; a picture framed between the soft greyish white walls of the tall houses which cast deep shadows only to make the sunlight seem brighter.

“I was afraid the approach to Naples would be the most satisfying picture she could present to us,” said Miss Cavendish, “but I am not disappointed with this inland scene.”

“I suppose it displays an appalling amount of inexperience and crass ignorance to be so surprised and pleased,” said Sidney, “but when it is one’s first trip abroad one has a right to be enthusiastic, don’t you think? I have no doubt some of our friends would find this anything but stimulating, ‘so hackneyed’ they would say, ‘Why not find something more unfamiliar to rave over?’”

“Oh, but I was under the impression that we came because it was new to us, and I, for one, do not intend to act like a disillusioned globe-trotter who has drunk her travelling-glass to the dregs. This is to be a journey of joy to us who have not outgrown our enthusiasms, and anything that contributes in the least to our pleasure is to be welcomed, be it old or new, well known or discovered on the instant. I believe in seeing the in-the-way places first, and the out-of-the-way ones another time.” Gabriella spoke decidedly.

“That is the true spirit, Gabriella,” Miss Cavendish told her. “We are to be a law unto ourselves, and we shall have the privilege of enjoying whatsoever pleases us and not what custom and habit declare the tourist should enjoy.”

“Then perceive me enjoying,” returned Gabriella. “For once I am devoutly thankful that I am not lapped in luxury, else I might be a peevish complainer because I could not get the best room in the newest hotel or because the service wasn’t perfect or some such fool thing as that. During this trip I intend that my halo shall always fit.”

“The guide-books give mention to a couple of dozen churches,” said Sidney, who had been studying her Baedeker with some diligence. “Which are we to see, Gem? Not all, I suppose.”

“No, we shall not have time. The cathedral, Santa Chiara, San Domenico Maggiore, and San Lorenzo are all that I think we shall want to see; I am told they are the best. We shall go to the National Museum, of course.”

“And to the Aquarium, of course.”

“Then we must not forget the fine views around Naples.”

“That from the Capo di Posilipo I am bound we shall not omit,” said Miss Cavendish, “and I do want to go as far as Pozzuoli; in that direction is a store of antiquities, and one is on classic ground.”

This was all accomplished within the next three days and then Miss Cavendish announced that she thought they were ready to leave Naples. “But I love it. I don’t want to leave it,” complained Gabriella.

“Not even to see the Blue Grotto, Sorrento and Pompeii?” asked Miss Cavendish, smiling.

“I am nearly consumed with excitement now,” declared Gabriella, “but when you mention those places I feel myself in such a state of ebullition that I shall evaporate into steam if I don’t look out. I have this morning beheld a goat walk upstairs to be milked, and have seen the descent made in the most matter-of-fact way, as if the dear, funny little creature reasoned it all out. No doubt it knows its customers as well as if it were a human. I have also viewed a woman arranging her hair, and performing such scanty ablutions as she deemed necessary; all this right on the street in the eyes of all who chose to behold. Then I saw scores of artisans at work at their various trades, and nearly the whole family life going on in the face of the public; cooking, washing, sewing, spanking babies, feeding them, dressing them, though the last didn’t need to delay long. Truly the people of Naples live in the streets. One thing makes me indignant, and that is the way the poor little donkeys are treated. They are such patient, meek-looking little creatures and have such heavy burdens to bear; they are beaten unmercifully, too; yet, I am told they are taken every year to be blessed by the priests. I think the greatest blessing that could be bestowed upon them would be a fund given to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and a law that would establish a legal weight for them to carry and that would cause the government to beat their beaters.”

“Perhaps, now that Gabriella has had her say,” remarked Sidney, “she will allow Gem to declare our plans for the next move.”

“I thought we would best go to Capri and Sorrento next,” Miss Cavendish hastened to say. “I learn that if you go to the quay you can get tickets at a reduced rate, for there is sharp competition and one may sometimes get a ticket as low as two francs for the round trip to Sorrento and Capri. One must be sure not to accept tickets for the larger boats, for it is on the smaller one that we find the cheap rates. We shall go to Capri and Sorrento the same day, stay over night at Sorrento, drive to Amalfi, remain there over night, drive to Salerno, and take the train from there to Paestum. Then, if we choose, we can go on from there to Pompeii or we can come back to Naples and take Pompeii as a separate trip.”

“Might as well do it all at once,” advised Gabriella. “Let us pack up and sally forth. I am wild to get out again into these heavenly streets and see all I can of these angelically dirty people; they are so dear and picturesque, and seem so happy living out-of-doors, pursuing their little trades right on the sidewalk in such a sociable way. If I were an artist I should drop down here in Naples and stay. I might wander as far as Capri or Sorrento, but I should never want to go any further.”

“I suppose we ought not to take up our precious time in going to the Aquarium again,” remarked Sidney, “but I should like to see that dreadful octopus again. He is positively fascinating. While Gabriella likes the streets, I like the Aquarium; it is as mysterious as an under-world with that half light and that marvellous collection of ‘things forked and horny and soft’ that ‘lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea.’ It most be a wonderfully attractive place to the naturalist.”

“There, I can’t pass that old blind man again,” Gabriella suddenly said. “Every time we go by this corner I see him out of the tail of my eye, and now he is getting into my system. I’ll just have to go back and buy a box of his matches. We’ll probably need them in the next few days. You needn’t wait for me; I’ll follow on.”

“We might stop and get some oranges,” suggested Sidney to Miss Cavendish. “I saw a beautiful branch in one of these little shops just ahead.” She made her purchase, which she triumphantly displayed to Gabriella when she overtook them. “Seven, all on one branch and only seven soldi, aren’t they fine? Did you get your matches?”

For answer Gabriella held out an open box in her hand. “I gave him ten centesimi,” she told them, “and look.” The box was empty.

“The old fraud! I’d take them right back and demand a full box,” said Sidney indignantly.

“I don’t believe there is a thing in any of them,” declared Gabriella, “and if there were, how could I make the exchange without standing there in the view of the populace and opening every one? What should I say? I have no words for the occasion, I am sure. Grazie doesn’t seem appropriate, neither does buon giorno or quanto appear to cover the need, and those are about all the words I know. Even if I took the dictionary along with me I am sure it would not supply a conversation upon just this particular subject. No, the incident is so funny and so beggarly Italian that I shall keep my little box as a souvenir and am perfectly willing to have paid ten centesimi for the experience. I am wondering now if Gem will have any difficulty with her tickets. Suppose they should be for some other point or should be last year’s issue and of no use whatever.”

“It would be terrible,” said Miss Cavendish, aghast. “Still, I don’t think they would dare to do a thing like that in cold blood, and I surely can read the name of our destination. I know enough for that, Gabriella.”

“I hope so,” said Gabriella, a trifle doubtfully, and looking at her match-box.

But Miss Cavendish had not the slightest difficulty in selecting the man with the cheapest tickets, and in assuring herself that they were not bogus, and therefore they were presently aboard the little steamer bound for Capri. “Now this is quite as comfortable as that big pretentious steamer which laughs us to scorn,” declared Sidney. “Moreover I am discovering that where cheapness is an object you often find there are benefits thrown in. Here, for example, one sees the people and not the tourists. Deliver me from those hordes of tourists that throng the churches and trample on your heels in the galleries. I am afraid the Blue Grotto will be full of them to-day; the water is so perfectly smooth and lovely.”

“I am glad we thought to bring chocolate and biscuits and things,” remarked Gabriella, “for if the horde, as Sidney calls it, should happen to want all the food that Capri can furnish, we shall not want. Where are your oranges, Sidney?”

Sidney turned around in dismay. “Why— Oh dear, I must have left them in that shop when we stopped to get the chocolate. Isn’t it a pity?”

“Oh, well, you can get some more at Capri,” Gabriella comforted her by saying. “You had the pleasure of buying them, and that was the main thing. Just think of it, our bodies, as well as our souls, to-day are ‘far away, sailing the Vesuvian bay.’ I don’t wonder that Buchanan Read wrote ‘Drifting’ if he loved this place as well as I do, for I could write a poem myself if I stayed here long enough.”

“But I’ve heard that he had never been to Italy when he wrote that,” said Sidney.

“Really? It seems incredible, doesn’t it? Then that is where he and I differ: he could write a poem about what he had not seen, and I could write one only of what I had seen many, many times.

“‘Here Ischia smiles o’er liquid miles,
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits—’”

“There, there, Gabriella,” interrupted Miss Cavendish, “we all know it by heart and have been repeating it at intervals for the last three days. Spare us when the reality is before us.”

“That is the very reason,” returned Gabriella; “when one is actually ‘under the walls of Paradise’ there is no use in trying to express one’s self in anything but poetry.”

“In that case,” replied Miss Cavendish sarcastically, “one of us at least would have to remain silent most of the time.”

“Cruel Gem,” murmured Gabriella.

“There are the little boats coming out to meet us,” cried Sidney. “We must be near the grotto. I wish I could see the opening. Do you suppose that tiny little hole in the cliffs can be it?”

“It would probably appear no larger from this distance,” Miss Cavendish answered.

“I’m getting scared. I don’t believe I want to go.”

“Silly girl, why not?” asked Gabriella.

“Because I’ve heard tales of ladies being robbed by the boatmen, and of getting in there and not being able to get out again for hours. I am sure I should not like to remain in such a blue place all night.”

“You need have no fears to-day,” Miss Cavendish assured her. “In the first place there will be dozens of boats going, to judge by the crowds on the other steamboats, and again this is a perfect day; the water is as smooth as glass and there will not be the least danger in our having to stop in the grotto for more than a few minutes. So, come along.”

When they emerged, half an hour later, even Gabriella was pale. “It was rather fearsome,” she declared. “What with all those boats knocking against each other, with the cries of the boatmen, and the prospect of being splashed by a big wave as you rode out, it wasn’t as funny as I anticipated. I think, however, that we came off very well, for our boatman was more careful than most.”

“It was wonderful, wonderful,” murmured Sidney. “I am glad I went. To feel yourself surrounded by that wonderful pellucid blueness—”

“Blueness doesn’t describe it,” Gabriella interrupted, “it is too tame, too commonplace. I should say blueth. It must have a word all to itself, for it is like nothing else in the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. Please adopt my word fresh from the mint.”

“We will,” Miss Cavendish promised. “What an ideal day and how fortunate that we brought our lunch, for there is such a crowd ready to invade every café and restaurant that I doubt if we could be served very speedily or comfortably.”

“It will be much more fun, too, to find some quaint little corner where we can have our meal al fresco. There, I have arrived at the proper spot for the proper use of that expression.”

“Hear them calling: Coralli! Coralli!” said Sidney as they took their way up the steep road. “I must buy something. Capri is the place for corals.”

“I’ll get some, too, if I can find a string for fifty cents. I’ll offer that for the best I see.” Gabriella cast her eyes critically over the corals presented by the nearest vendor. “I am learning to Jew down most successfully, and I shall try my hand at a real bargain this time. See those lovely pale pink ones, Sidney. Do get those.” Which Sidney promptly did, while Gabriella chaffered and haggled over a less pretentious string, finally bearing it away in triumph. “What did I tell you?” she exclaimed. “I knew I could get them for two and a half francs if I kept a firm front, and they are not half bad.”

“They will look much better at home, too,” Miss Cavendish assured her. “Everyone finds that out, and wishes he or she had not passed by so many pretty, cheap trifles which seem so valuable to one’s friends at home. Do see those children dancing the tarantella as if it were the business of life. Did you ever see such a picture? I shall have to give them some coppers.”

“And have them haunt you the rest of the day.”

“Never mind; we shall have the fun of seeing them dance,” said Sidney. “Aren’t they the funniest little creatures? See them snap their fingers and dance backward up this steep road.”

“Perhaps they can tell us where we can get some oranges,” said Gabriella. “I confess to feeling a crying need for sustenance. Where is the dictionary? What do you ask for? Aràncio? Melaràncio, or what?” She put a halting question, and the children stopped their dance and stood staring uncomprehendingly. But a man, passing, halted and beckoned to the ladies, who followed him to a gate set in a high white wall by the roadside. The man unlocked the gate and ushered them into a sort of courtyard with stone seats on two sides. He politely motioned them to the seats, went further up the hill and cut from one of his orange trees a quantity of oranges which he brought to them. At the same time he made it known to them in the few English words that he knew that they were very welcome to eat their luncheon under his vine and fig tree, literally. The little white house which opened into the courtyard appeared cleaner than most. A woman with a baby in her arms and with two or three children clinging to her skirts, peeped curiously from a portico above. Two little boys, more venturesome, came from the house to view the strangers, but they were quickly ordered out of sight and the ladies were left in possession.

“Isn’t this perfect, and isn’t he a dear?” said Gabriella.

“And how much better off we are than those personally conducted who are crowding the cafés and restaurants,” said Sidney, peeping over the wall.

“This is simply ideal. Here comes our dear man again. What has he now?”

Their host approached, dusty bottle in hand. “Would the signorinas be pleased to have a bottle of Lacrima Christi? He could recommend it?”

“At least, that is what I gather from his remarks,” said Gabriella. “Of course we want it. Grazie! Mille grazie, signor. Please to hear my fluent Italian, Gem. I am getting on.”

Then glasses were brought and the wine was proffered to each. It proved to be delicious and the three congratulated themselves upon the happy chance that brought them to such a spot. They thanked their host as profusely as their vocabulary would permit and received the assurance that the padrone was pleased that he could give them of his best. Would they not remain awhile and rest? they should not be disturbed. He brought them fresh water and clean towels, removed the orange peels and soiled glasses and left nothing undone which in any way would contribute to their comfort. In broken Italian on the one side and broken English on the other a conversation was maintained, but the good will needed no words.

“We have intruded quite long enough,” declared Miss Cavendish at last. “I wonder how much I should offer him.” She drew forth her purse; the contadino protested. She offered him coin; he refused it. Miss Cavendish turned to the girls aghast. “He actually means us to accept his hospitality for nothing. Did you ever? We can’t do that.”

But at this moment a solution to the difficulty appeared in the person of a soft-eyed, dark-haired little girl bearing in her arms a cherubic baby. “Your youngest?” Miss Cavendish asked the man. He smiled joyously, showing his gleaming white teeth. “Then this for the bambino,” said Miss Cavendish, putting a lira into each chubby hand, and they departed amid adieux and grazies from the entire family assembled to see them off.

“It was lovely, simply lovely,” said Miss Cavendish, “to discover such disinterested hospitality in this day and generation. I can scarcely believe that this grasping world possesses such a rarity as our contadino.”

“You don’t suppose,” Sidney ventured hesitatingly, “that it was all a pretence, and that the baby was brought in at the last moment for effect? It seems too Arcadian to be real.”

“Why, my dear,” Miss Cavendish exclaimed. “Do you imagine that travellers are in the habit of knocking at his gate for admission? Why should they? I am sure no one would even know a house was there. He just happened to overhear us when we inquired for oranges. He doesn’t keep an inn, and I doubt if Americans ever entered his garden before. I must retain my belief that it was real kindliness and not a matter of loaves and fishes, else why did he refuse the money at first? We might have gone away then and there, you know. Oh, no, it was unmistakable generosity and true hospitality, and I think we shall see more of it before we leave Italy.”

CHAPTER III
IN HONOR OF A QUEEN

Miss Cavendish was not disappointed in her optimistic belief in the kindliness of the Italians, for after Sorrento was reached and the three tired, but happy travellers had decided to quarter themselves in an old monastery set in an orange grove, they undertook a journey into the village of flowers for the purpose of buying postal cards. A smile, a word of appreciation to the good old woman who kept the shop, and they were loaded with favors; huge bunches of roses were bestowed upon them, oranges of a size and flavor not before discovered, were offered them.

“It is Arcadia,” sighed Sidney. “I knew it the moment our little boat stopped at that old stone landing and we went up, up that vaulted passageway to the top of the bluff. Every time we came out upon one of those balconies to rest and looked down on that blue, blue sea I knew we were ‘under the walls of paradise’ in reality.”

“I knew it before that,” said Gabriella. “I was thrilled with the fact when the steamer stopped off there in the bay and those little boats came up and surrounded us. The boatmen looked so picturesque standing in those tiny tossing things and it was all so unlike anything I ever knew before. How did you ever happen to pick out the right one, Gem, when they were all babbling and clamoring so?”

“I have dreamed of this spot for years,” Miss Cavendish told her. “I read of it long ago and determined, once I had the good fortune to come to Sorrento, I would stop nowhere else.”

“It is so fascinating,” sighed Gabriella. “Everything about it is fascinating down to the major domo with his five languages and his side-whiskers. I shall never forget my sensations when we reached the top of that old stone stairway and came out at last in the orange grove. Then when I learned that we could have all the oranges we wanted, and when I saw those busy little bees at work for us, I knew we had struck Elysium. I can tell you, dear people, those good bees will have to get awfully busy now I have come.”

“And then the orange-blossoms and the roses in such profusion,” Sidney continued the rhapsody.

“And the dinner,” Gabriella took up the strain; “I never ate such good things in all my life.”

“And all for six francs a day, wine and lights included,” said Miss Cavendish. “Girls, I vote we stay here two or three days; I’m sure we shall never regret it.”

“Oh, dearest Gem,” Gabriella threw herself upon her friend in a transport of delight, “it is what I have been longing to do from the time I set foot inside the walls, but I didn’t want to interfere with your plans.”

“Our plans aren’t cast iron,” returned Miss Cavendish; “that is the beauty of them; we can do what we please when we please and how we please. If we prefer to stay in Italy the entire six months we can do it and nobody can object.”

“I am so happy,” sighed Sidney.

“I am so ecstatically joyful,” cried Gabriella, “that I don’t believe I could stand much more. Oh, the bliss of being here in this spot of spots, and of knowing that we shall have time to learn it better. We can stay over Sunday, can’t we, Gem?”

“We can and we will. I don’t know of a better place for that day of rest.”

Night lay upon Sorrento. Across the bay the lights of Naples twinkled through the lambent atmosphere. High above the plain the red fires of Vesuvius once in a while shot up wickedly. From Sorrento’s bluffs one could look down upon the doubles of stars reflected in the blue waters beneath. The orange groves sent forth a delicious odor, which, mingling with the scent of roses, filled the air with a mysterious sweetness whose source was visibly discerned only when one caught a glimpse of pale blossoms rioting over the grey walls.

Miss Cavendish and Sidney were treading the path which led between rows of orange and lemon trees to the edge of the bluff. “We should certainly hear nightingales here,” remarked Miss Cavendish. “Of all places this is where I should expect to hear them. It may not be the season for the full song, yet it does seem to me that I can detect a very sweet twittering which comes from the depths of that garden next us.”

“It belongs to the villa of a princess,” Sidney told her. “Gabriella and I have peeped in and we are dying to penetrate further. It looks perfectly fascinating like the pictures one sees of such places in the Century Magazine. That was the lodge we passed on our way to the town this afternoon; that house, you know, where they had all those birds and monkeys and things. What a perfect night.”

“And what a perfect day, or rather days we have had; each one as exquisite as it would be possible for weather to give.”

“And to think we saw the Queen of Holland face to face. Wasn’t that luck? Here comes Gabriella; I hear her calling us.”

“Where are you two?” Gabriella’s voice penetrated the quiet. “Gem, Sidney? Ah, I thought I should find you here. Isn’t it perfect? But you can’t stay, for our host has asked some of us to go into the gardens of the princess, where we can see the illuminations. They are going to send up fireworks from the village in honor of Queen Wilhelmina. There is to be a boat race, too, and all the houses along the bluff are lighted up gorgeously. Come along; the others are waiting.”

Her companions needed no second bidding, and a little party was soon on its way down the dusty road to the lodge. The garden, when they entered, was dimly beautiful, but as they advanced they perceived lanterns swinging from the archways, while upon the marble balustrade of the long colonnade were set, at intervals, tiny lamps of so primitive a character that they seemed a remnant of antiquity. “Aren’t they pretty?” said Gabriella, leaning over to look at them closer. “They are nothing in the world but tumblers with oil in them and little lighted wicks floating on top. Did you ever suspect, Sid, to be walking in such a place on such a night? Did you ever expect to be presented to anyone’s vision against a background of clipped hedges and marvellous peacock-shaped bushes and marble statuary and urns and amphoras and things? When I get rich I shall buy a villa at Sorrento and you shall both come and spend months with me. I have found the one place in the world that was made for me. There goes a rocket. Come, we must do honor to the queen by gazing at her fireworks.”

For an hour or more the little company enjoyed the scene, and then they were piloted home by their host, sombrely wrapped in his black cloak, a broad-brimmed hat set upon his dark curling locks.

“He looks as if he had stepped out of an old romance,” whispered Sidney, “and I feel as if I were here upon some mysterious errand, stealing through this dim garden, and through these dark unfamiliar rooms.” At this moment a harsh cry at her very side startled her, and her sleeve was suddenly caught and held. She gave a slight scream which brought the keeper of the lodge and, by the light of a swinging lamp which he turned in her direction, they discovered that a gorgeous parrot had resented this intrusion and had given a sudden peck at the passing stranger.

Till midnight the festivities were kept up, and all Sorrento joined in the celebration, but at last the final rocket soared into the sky and fell hissing into the waters below. Then only the gloomy fires of Vesuvius glowed sullenly upon the mountain top while Sorrento slept.

Gabriella, however, remained awake for a long time. New and vivid impressions had been made too rapidly upon her brain and she stole from her bed to creep out upon the balcony, thinking the peace of the night might enter her soul and quiet her. The faint and far tinkle of a mandolin, the occasional twitter of a bird in the deep grove, the plash of the water on the sands far below were the only sounds she could hear. “Night in Italy and I am here, while at home my little mother has no idea of the joy of it. She is burdened by the cares of the day, by the never ceasing grind of existence.” The girl sighed, and her eyes filled. “Oh, sweetest mother, I am thinking of you, and I am wishing that I could share this rapture with you. It is rapture, this being here, and across the sea I send you a wish for some great joy to come to you to-morrow.” After these thoughts Gabriella tip-toed back to her bed and the morning brought the mother her child’s first letter from foreign lands.

But on that morrow no one could detect in Gabriella a suggestion of her mood of the night before. She was all sparkle and gladness, bubbling over with nonsense and ready for anything. Eager for mental as well as carnal food, she declared herself. “Like Saint Lucy I seem to keep my eyes in a dish, I eat so much,” she said. “You might send a picture of me to mother, and under it write, ‘Saint Gabriella with her eyes in a dish.’ I’ll take your egg, Gem, if you are not going to eat it.”

“Can you really manage it, Gabriella, with polenta and honey, too, not to mention all that toast?” asked Miss Cavendish.

“Oh, yes, I can manage it, thank you,” replied Gabriella cheerfully; “the bees will have to work over-time, that’s all. It won’t hurt them; I’d do the same for the sake of living in an orange grove and always having honey for breakfast. I want to learn something about Tasso to-day, Gem, so please prime yourself, for I don’t intend to lose any opportunity of improving my mind. I must find out why and when and to what degree his spirit soared and sung. Any facts gratefully received. We will repair to the orange grove immediately after breakfast. I expect to eat at least six oranges before lunch time.”

“You will be in no state then for improving your mind, I fear,” returned Miss Cavendish.

“Won’t I? Just try me. I am not to be outdone by a little thing like an extra egg. I am simply the better reinforced. Brain work is very exhausting to the system and I must repair the waste. Have you finished, Sid? Were you going to send for some more hot polenta?”

“I have finished. Why?”

“Nothing; I only thought if you couldn’t eat all that polenta I might help you out.”

“Gabriella Thorne, you shall not have another mouthful,” declared Miss Cavendish. “I am responsible to your mother for you, and I shall not return her either a wreck or a glutton.”

Gabriella laughed and arose from her place. “That settles it. I am now ready for Tasso. Let us to the orange grove; some one will have our seat if I tarry any longer.”

They wandered down the shady path and established themselves upon one of the old stone benches by the wall. This spot overlooked the magnificent expanse of blue sea and sky, with Ischia and Capri hazily azure on the one side and the cone of smoking Vesuvius on the other. Far below them glistened the white sands upon which the long ripples plashed with a gentle murmur. The eye following the line of the bluff was arrested here and there by some brilliant blossom swinging from its slight hold in a crannied rock, and the song of a boatman, standing as he rowed, came sweetly to their ears.

Miss Cavendish carefully spread a shawl over the stone bench littered with leaves and green with moss. She looked at the lovely scene before her. “And this was what the young eyes of Torquato Tasso saw,” she said after a while. “He was born in Sorrento in 1544. He left this fair spot when he was ten years old and joined his father in Rome. His mother was of Sorrento. Porzia de Rossi was her name. Tasso was well born and had more than usual advantages in education. Of course you know that he wrote ‘Rinaldo’ and the ‘Gerusalemme Liberata,’ the first a heroic romance, the second a heroic record of the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. He was a great poet, so great that his father, no mean poet himself, at first was jealous, but afterward he rejoiced in the brilliant successes of his son Torquato.”

“And poor Tasso became insane; I know that much about him,” said Gabriella.

“Yes, in his case it was true that whom the gods destroy they first made mad. He believed that he was pursued by secret persecutors who had declared him a heretic and had denounced him to the Inquisition. These delusions were not constant and, in this, his native spot, he recovered his equilibrium.”

“Who wouldn’t?” sighed Gabriella. “I am sure I would. Go on, Gem.”

“But when he returned to the old excitements of court life, the malady again appeared and he finally died in the monastery of Sant’ Onofrio in Rome.”

“We must go there,” said Sidney. “I am interested in Tasso. I’d like to hear more details of his life.”

“That is one of the joys,” remarked Gabriella; “every spot one visits re-creates a desire to dive deeper into books. I feel my mind expanding hourly, and the beauty of it is that what you learn over here will stick, for it will be accentuated by these living pictures.”

“Oh, to know the languages,” said Sidney. “Don’t you feel yourself a perfect ignoramus when you run across a ragged little urchin, or a wretch of a cab-driver who can speak fluently two or three languages? I have been put to shame more than once by the poorest sort of shopkeeper, who knows English and French besides his own native Italian.”

“As a nation,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “we are exceedingly well satisfied. Our language is sufficient for us. We are not dependent upon foreigners for our bread and butter as the Italians are. Moreover, our country is so large and, as English is its universal language, we do not feel required to learn another. Here if they but step over the border it is to hear a strange tongue.”

“Nevertheless, I don’t think we are the linguists we should be,” said Sidney. “When I go home I shall take up French and German again so when I come abroad another time I shall not feel such a goose.”

“May fate order that we be her travelling companions that next time,” said Gabriella. “Now, what I should like to do, would be to stay right here in this dear old place and study Italian, read Italian literature and all that. I’d begin with Tasso.”

“And learn to drop the O from Sorrento, and in fact slip off the penultimate as most of these of Sorrento do. I’d advise you to study Italian elsewhere than in Southern Italy unless you are sure of your master’s knowledge of the language. I should begin, too, my literature further back than Tasso,” Miss Cavendish went on. “I should take Dante first and follow him up with Petrarch, though both of them belong properly to Florence and might better be studied there. Still they were also Italian, if Florentines, and if one had the time to linger in this charmed Sorrento, what more delightful than to make a comprehensive study of Italian literature in this very place?”

“And learn to read it in the original,” interposed Gabriella. “Oh me, life is much too short to do all there is to do. How can anybody call his days flat and uneventful when there is a whole world to explore, if not in the body, in the mind? I wish I were twins that I might have one of me for the work-a-day world and the other to do those things which please only my love of the æsthetic. Yes, I regret more and more that loss of a Methuselah’s length of years, but since we have not time for plodding, let us take a short cut to-day, so please, ma’am, tell us more of Tasso. I wish you remembered some of his poetry.”

“Perhaps I do, a little. You are familiar with those well-known stanzas upon Carthage:

“‘Great Carthage prostrate lies; and scarce a trace

Of all her mighty ruins marks the place
Where once she stood: thus Desolation waits
On loftiest cities, and on proudest states;
Huge heaps of sand, and waving herbage hide
The pomp of power, the monuments of pride;
And yet does man, poor child of earth presume
To mourn vain arrogance! his mortal doom!’

“Tasso wrote more than a thousand sonnets and such like poems. I wish I could repeat some of them.”

“The next time we come to Sorrento we must bring a volume of his poems with us,” Sidney decided.

“When we go to Florence we will be saying that we must have Dante and Petrarch, and in Rome—dear, dear, what shall we not want?” said Gabriella. “No, Sidney, our baby trunks will not hold any accumulation of books. We shall have to store our minds, and carry our information as the bees do honey to be placed in the honeycombs afterward. After this mental effort I feel the need of an orange. Sid, will you help me to get some for all of us?”

Miss Cavendish picked up her book and the girls wandered off among the orange trees. She heard their laughing voices in merry, chaffing, girlish talk. They were so happy that she could not refrain from joining them. They were leaning over the wall looking at the beautiful scene before them.

“Sid wants a history,” said Gabriella, as Miss Cavendish came up, “but I need a dictionary of my own language. I don’t care what this place has been; all I want to know is where I can find adjectives enough to adequately express my present admiration for what it is. I have used exquisite, divine, perfect, delicious, fascinating, bewildering so many times that I am getting ashamed of myself, and now I am beginning to say wunderschoen till Sid laughs at me. What am I to do? I simply cannot restrain my desire to express what I feel, and I am helpless with such a limited vocabulary. What am I to do?”

“There is no use in telling you to exercise self-control, so I suppose the only thing you can do is to wear your adjectives threadbare. We can stand it when we consider the occasion.”

“But isn’t it the most exquisite panorama you ever saw?” said Gabriella for the hundredth time. “I don’t care a rap about Herculaneum and Pompeii and ancient Greek civilization when I can glory in the presence of such color, such composition. I am afraid I am not historically inclined. I have decided that in my last incarnation I was an artist. Go to, Sidney. Don’t ask Gem another question about the different eruptions of Vesuvius. Who cares for stale dates when one can get fresh oranges?”

“Gabriella, you are incorrigible,” said Miss Cavendish. “Go off and make those meaningless speeches to yourself while Sidney and I improve our minds.”

“No, I’ll play the Gamaliel act, too, and sit at your feet,” returned Gabriella.

“Then you will have to promise not to interrupt.”

“Oh, I can promise fast enough, if that’s all,” returned the girl, laughing. “But do draw it mild. If you encourage Sid in these investigations she will demand that you take up the study of cuneiform and will insist upon buying queer things like the Rosetta stone. There is no telling, once such a craze overtakes one, where it will lead.”

“If Gabriella is going to keep up this incessant gabble,” said Miss Cavendish, “you and I, Sidney, would better go somewhere else.”

“I will be good; I promise,” said Gabriella.

“But will you perform?”

“Yes, I really will. To think that Vesuvius was once smiling with green vines, and that no one suspected it to be a volcano. There, doesn’t that show my interest and my intimate knowledge of the subject? Spare me dates, good lady and I am a meek Gamaliel.”

“The first recorded eruption took place in A. D. 79,” began Miss Cavendish.

“She begins with dates right away,” groaned Gabriella. “I fear my mortal mind cannot stand it. I will go and write to mother. Farewell, dears, loath as I am to leave you, I cannot look at Vesuvius arithmetically. I prefer its ‘misty brim’ to remain misty so far as history is concerned. Farewell, oh, sapient educator, and inquisitive pupil. I am going.”

CHAPTER IV
THE BRITON

“Such a gay little cavalcade we are,” said Gabriella, looking back over the long white road which wound along the cliffs above the bluest of seas and beneath the bluest of skies. “I didn’t think Gem would desert us so early in the fray,” she continued, “but I think she really does enjoy those nice Englishwomen that we met at Sorrento, and she thought it would be rather fun for us two girls to have this drive to ourselves. I notice she has discreetly sent us on ahead of her carriage and that she intervenes between us and that young Englishman and his friend whom we caught sight of as we were leaving the town. Did you ever see anything so rakish as these little horses with the long feather sticking out of their heads? ‘Stick a feather in his cap and call him Maccaroni;’ that would be a good name for an Italian horse.”

Sidney looked back. “The Englishman’s carriage has passed Gem’s. I believe they want to lead.”

“Beasts! We shall get all their dust. Where’s the dictionary? What do we say when we want the driver to go faster?”

“We mustn’t get ahead of Gem’s carriage; we must keep just a little in advance of it.”

“But I will not have that haughty Briton’s dust, I declare it. I am a free-born American citizen and I absolutely refuse to be treated with spurn by any Englishman that ever trod.”

Sidney looked back to gain further information. “They have slacked up. Oh, Gabriella, look; they are amicably conversing with Gem’s Sorrento acquaintances. Do you suppose they know them?”

“Perhaps, but don’t look back again as you value your life. I feel hostile.”

“And why?”

“Oh, because I don’t want them to know that we are aware of their existence. Let’s talk about Tiberius. My book says that he is still considered the patron of Capri, and that there they yet regard him with pride. I’d like to go to Capri and stay a while, although they say that the tourists are spoiling it. Anacapri is still provincial, I believe.”

“I am sure we found an unspoiled resident of the island,” remarked Sidney.

“We surely did; I acknowledge that. Sidney, you might look back just once and glimpse them; as it were. We mustn’t get too far ahead.”

“They are forging along,” Sidney reported, “and Gem is waving her handkerchief. Does that mean we are to call a halt?”

“It means something. We’ll have to stop and see what. Cocchiere fermo. That is what the dictionary says. I hope it is right.”

“Evidently it is, as we have stopped. Are you going to get out?”

“No, I am going to wait events. I am nothing if not cautious.”

The other carriages came up to them and Miss Cavendish called. “We are going to have luncheon now, girls.”

“Must we get out?” asked Sidney.

“No, no,” expostulated Gabriella, acquiring an English reserve at once. “We can drive alongside, Sidney, the other side from the Britons.”

But all this scheming came to naught, for no sooner were the three carriages grouped by the side of the road than Mr. Owen Morgan and his friend, Herr Muller, were presented to the girls by the Misses Bailey, whose friends they were, and it turned out that the Englishman was not strictly English but Welsh. Gabriella unfroze a little, for she had a confessed weakness for anything Welsh, and announced that she considered a Welsh rarebit the choicest of treats. Sidney was pleasantly polite to the German whose English was meagre but who spoke fairly good French, and, therefore, in a little while it was really quite a jolly party. The gentlemen gallantly waited on the ladies, sharing their luncheon with them, while the ladies produced their own stores. “To be sure,” said Gabriella afterward, “our stores were much the best, for that dear delightful old man at the pension had put such delicious things in our basket, toothsome little cakes and those delectable raisiny things done up with spices and baked in fig leaves. We had figs and oranges galore, too, but I must say the masculines furnished better wine than ours.”

They set off again very gaily after luncheon and all reached Amalfi together, Miss Cavendish and her girls separating from the others at this place.

“It is a dear and lovely spot but not as fascinating as the one we have just left,” said Sidney, “though Miss Mildred Bailey likes it better.”

“I don’t see how she could,” returned Gabriella. “I wouldn’t exchange this clean, quiet little hotel for theirs, either.”

“It is well to be so content with what is a matter of economy,” said Miss Cavendish, “for this is much the cheaper.”

“So much the better for that. How did you like the masculine element, Gem? Now, I come to think of it, I believe that it is because of those ravening wolves that you have brought your meek little lambs here, so as to get them away from danger.”

“You are such a very meek little lamb,” remarked Miss Cavendish. “I noticed what a very faint and protesting bleat you gave to that young Morgan.”

“Sidney’s French is better than mine, so I naturally turned her over to the German while Owen Morgan and I talked of Welsh rarebit and—things. Hasn’t he the dearest Welsh name?”

“It is very Welsh; I don’t know how dear it may be to you,” answered Miss Cavendish.

“It is very dear to-day, but I cannot tell how it may seem to-morrow. I saw the elder Miss Bailey looking very hard at me once or twice, but I knew you, my dearest Gem, could not disapprove of my making myself agreeable and of keeping up our national reputation for vivacity. I have noticed that the English girls, the few that I have seen, are not animated. I suppose Miss Bailey was studying me as a type.”

“We shall see them again,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “for we are going up to the Cappuchini, and they promised to look out for us.”

But they did not see their travelling companions of the morning, for Gabriella caught sight of them in the town and insisted that they should take the opportunity of visiting the famous old monastery before the Bailey party should have returned to it, and, after the long climb up the cliffs and a rest under the vines of the garden, they returned without regret to their own simpler establishment.

“It is certainly a delightful spot, or would be if it were not so full of new richness,” declared Gabriella. “It is exactly like the pictures of it on the postal cards, but I like this place better, where I don’t feel as if we had to pay a centesimi for every breath we draw.”

“VIEW FROM THE MONASTERY.”

“Do you notice how we are beset by beggars here in Amalfi?” said Sidney. “They are even worse than they were in Naples, and that is saying a good deal. We didn’t have near so many at Sorrento. Come here, Gabriella, and see them below our windows.”

Gabriella joined her. “I just stepped out here to look at the view,” continued Sidney, “and there were dozens of them clamoring for una soldi.”

“We can go into that cunning little garden,” said Gabriella, “and get rid of them. I believe I must not say cunning; it is an Americanism which will be misunderstood by our English friends, who will think I mean crafty. I wonder if we shall meet them again. They are not going on to Paestum, but will return to Naples by way of Castellemare. Gem seems rather sorry. I think she likes the young men; they amuse her. I must confess that they also amuse me.”

“I shall never forget that early morning drive to Amalfi,” mused Sidney. “I should feel well repaid for having crossed the ocean if I saw nothing more than this lovely southern Italy.”

“If I were to be recalled this minute I should not regret having made the trip,” remarked Miss Cavendish. “Travelling in this section is certainly made very easy.”

But she changed her mind somewhat before they reached Pompeii; for, after having expended their adjectives freely in admiring the splendid Greek temples of Paestum, they set out to continue their way to Naples by way of Pompeii. Their experience had been that nearly everywhere it was possible to find some one who could speak English, and were now expecting nothing less. They had in the beginning carefully prepared sentences, studiously constructing them from the dictionary and phrase book, and then presenting them haltingly only to have them answered in perfectly correct English, so that it seemed rather superfluous to worry over the matter of acquiring a strange language, as time went on.

“It did very well at the shops and hotels and such places,” said Miss Cavendish, looking helplessly at her tickets, “but there seems to be an unwritten law that at the railroad stations none of the officials are to speak English. These tickets have a notice attached saying that they are to be signed somewhere by somebody. I infer, from what I can make out, that it must be done at the first station, so we must get off there.”

When this point was reached they all rushed from the train and sought the ticket-office, none too easily discovered, to learn that their errand was unnecessary, so they hurried back to their places.

“All that hurry for nothing,” panted Miss Cavendish.

“I shouldn’t have minded it so much,” said Gabriella, “if that pestiferously officious man had not hampered us by pretending he knew what we wanted, and after all was only a hindrance. He made me so mad, and I wouldn’t have given him a penny, although that was what he expected. Why, he didn’t do a thing but get in our way. If we had missed the train on his account, I should like to have done something to him.”

“We changed at Battapaglia, didn’t we?” said Miss Cavendish in the course of half an hour.

Gabriella did not remember, but Sidney did. “Yes,” she replied, “that was the place. I remember perfectly.”

“Then we must not fail to be ready to get out there. Not one of these guards can understand a word we say, so we shall have to look out for ourselves. There, we are slowing up now. The guard called something. Didn’t it sound to you like Battapaglia?”

“It certainly did,” agreed the two girls, and they picked up their traps, and hastened out. Each had a satchel; Gabriella had a package of Sorrento wood-work; Sidney had a bundle of silk stuffs which she had bought at the same place; Miss Cavendish had the golf capes and the umbrellas. It was something to get all these belongings together, but they managed it only to find that it was not Battapaglia, but a place similar in name.

“We are fortunate always to be able to get the same train,” said Sidney, sinking down into her place.

“There is some comfort in knowing the train will wait for us,” said Miss Cavendish; “they never seem to be in any hurry to start.”

The real Battapaglia was reached in due time; it was plain enough to discover the name on a big sign, and being sure that this time they were right the three ladies left the train. But after rushing from one side of the platform to the other, they found an official who was made to understand that they wanted to go to Pompeii, and who hurried them back to the same train which they had just left.

“Isn’t it the most patient, good-natured thing you ever saw?” said Gabriella, as she sank laughing into her seat. “I never believed a train could so take upon itself the characteristics of a people. It simply stands till we get through our vagaries and then takes us aboard and goes on again.”

“It is a through train, I suppose,” said Miss Cavendish, as if she rather regretted the fact. “Now we must make no more mistakes, but must have our eyes open for Pompeii.”

Sidney kept a sharp lookout and at last announced, “This is it. ‘Val de Pompeii.’ There can’t be more than one Pompeii, can there?”

They gathered up their belongings and fared forth. Miss Cavendish grasped a guard by the coat sleeve and showed him her tickets. “Si, si,” he said. But the wayfarers had only walked a short distance up the platform when Miss Cavendish was seized with doubts. Where was the Hotel Suisse? the Hotel Diomede? The three retraced their steps and Miss Cavendish fell upon a passing traveller. “Is this the station for Pompeii?” she asked.

The man shook his head. “Val de Pompeii. Non Pompeii.” They rushed tumultuously back, and there still stood the little train as ready as ever to take them on, and this time they did not leave it till Pompeii was actually reached.

“Imagine such an experience in our country,” gasped Miss Cavendish, “but, even over here, I defy anybody to do more than take the same train four times in one afternoon.”

Both Gabriella and Sidney were mute. The limit of human endurance had been reached, and when they dragged forth their suit cases for the last time and found their way to the hotel, it was Gabriella who rushed up to the smiling host who met them at the door. “Do you speak English?” she queried anxiously and excitedly.

“Yes, miss,” he replied.

“Thank Heaven!” she ejaculated. “We have found some one we can tell our troubles to.”

“It is so comfortable to feel that we do not even have to remember aqua calde,” said Sidney, when they had been shown to their rooms and had given their orders to a neat little English-speaking maid.

“And to think that we shall not have to examine a dictionary before our appetites can be appeased,” said Gabriella. “No sallying forth for me, this evening, I shall simply sit in this hotel and gloat.”

“I think we shall all do well to rest,” said Miss Cavendish, “for we shall need all our energies to-morrow for the ruined city. Pray we may have an intelligent guide.”

“Who speaks intelligible English,” said Sidney.

Their guide happened to fill both these requirements, and moreover, added to the merit of good looks the fact that he was from Sorrento.

“I never dreamed it would be so absorbingly interesting,” said Gabriella, as they came away after spending their day among the ruins. “I think it was half that handsome guide who spoke such excellent English. He made it so fascinating to me.”

“He made it fascinating to us all,” said Miss Cavendish. “That silent city! How many times I shall think of the story it told us. How many times I shall look back to the sunshiny morning when we wandered through the desolate streets, in fancy hearing the shout of charioteers, in fancy seeing the helmeted soldiers, the exquisites in their robe making their way to the thermæ; seeing Nydia bearing her flowers, and the slaves with their amphoræ.”

“Dear me, Gem,” cried Gabriella, “you are waxing booky. Didn’t you love to see the little lizards twinkling in and out the overthrown stones? Isn’t it strange to think they are the only inhabitants of that old city, and that people of another race now haunt the place to wonder at the splendor of a departed glory?”

“Who’s talking booky now?” laughed Sidney. “Come, dear people, we must finish ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’ to-night or we shall find that it is lapping over upon some of the things we shall have to read in Rome.”

“Had you thought of making the ascent of Vesuvius?” Gabriella asked Miss Cavendish the next morning.

“I had thought of it, but it is an expensive trip, and I, for one, do not need to put my hand on wonders of that kind in order to enjoy them. I think we can get all the satisfaction we want from a volcano by looking at it from a distance.”

Gabriella looked a little disappointed. She liked the daring and difficult things. “There is a way of going up from this side which is much cheaper,” she remarked. “Our guide told me about it.”

“Oh, but we mustn’t do it unless there is a big party,” Sidney broke in. “I had some friends who took that trip and they had a dreadful time. It cost twice as much as they had been given to suppose it would, and it was really very dangerous, they heard afterward. They were three ladies who undertook the trip, and their friends in Naples were shocked to think they had trusted themselves to those strange guides that no one knew anything about, and who might have robbed them and thrown them into the crater and no one would have been the wiser.”

“I can vouch for their not robbing me,” remarked Gabriella, with a laugh. “But that grewsome suggestion of yours, Sidney, cures me of any desire to go up except in the most commonplace way on an orderly funicular railway. I must confess I had visions of riding a donkey, or of being toted by two lusty guides when we came to the steepest places, but I have no ambition to be thrown into a fiery furnace.” And she walked off humming, “Where, oh, where are the Hebrew children.”

“I am afraid Gabriella is disappointed,” said Sidney, regretfully, “but really, Gem, I don’t think we ought to go on that trip. You know Gabriella’s utter confidence in humanity. She would, like as not, give one of those men her pocketbook to hold, and so arouse his cupidity. I have already seen her share her chocolate with the most vicious looking of cab-drivers, and I am sure she would do the same with those rascally donkey boys. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“I agree with you,” said Miss Cavendish. “Yet Gabriella’s smiling confidence and her good comradeship gains us more than one favor. She will hob-nob with anybody, and is rarely taken advantage of, by even the most wily old cheats, just because she is so sweetly trusting. That blind man who gave her the empty match-box would never have done it if he could have seen her smile.”

“Let us hope Gabriella’s smile will be the means of getting us out of all future difficulties,” said Sidney, who, being very tired, was slightly pessimistic.

“What’s that about difficulties?” asked Gabriella, coming in from the balcony. “We aren’t going to have any. Next time I shall get a time-table and shall study up all the stations as we go along. You don’t suppose by any chance we shall miss getting out at Rome when we get there, do you? There can’t be a Val de Roma, but I’ll make it my business to find out if there is. Come out, Sid, and hear those dear men singing ‘Funiculi, Funicula.’ When shall we hear that song again, I wonder. I am sure whenever I do it will make me homesick for this lovely southern Italy. Come, Sidney.” And the two went out to expend their coppers upon the singers in the street below.

CHAPTER V
ROMANCES

Another day found the travellers on their way to Rome. Yielding to Sidney’s persuasions and those of three fellow pensionnaires Miss Cavendish took first-class tickets that the six might have a compartment to themselves. “Though really,” said she, “it is a waste of money, for the only difference that I can see is in tidies or no tidies; the first-class have them and the second do not, but as the trains are usually very crowded this time of year it may be as well that we go this way.”

“We shall be regarded as such rich Americans,” remarked Gabriella.

“But we shall have all the room we need for our comfort,” said Sidney. But alas, for their hopes, on this occasion it rained for the first time since their arrival in Italy, and the roof of the first-class carriage was leaky, so that to obtain any comfort at all they had to squeeze closely into the four corners to prevent their receiving the constant dripping from overhead and to keep their feet from the little puddle of water which gathered in the middle of the floor.

“And they call this first-class,” said Gabriella, as they left their places when their destination was reached. “Give me second-class after this. I’ll willingly forego the tidies,—or antimacassars as our English friends call them,—for the sake of a dry journey. We couldn’t have been more crowded if there had been ten of us instead of six.”

“Never mind, it is all over now,” said Miss Cavendish, “and we will not do it again.”

“Is this really Rome?” said Sidney, as they drove through the Via Nazionale; “it looks so dreadfully new.”

“It certainly is Rome,” returned Miss Cavendish, “but it is not all of Rome.”

“I am sure there is an old, a very old something,” said Gabriella, who had caught sight of the Thermæ of Diocletian.

“Oh, but I am disappointed,” said Sidney. “It doesn’t look a bit like what I expected.”

“This is the modern quarter,” said Miss Cavendish, reassuringly. “I fancied we would get better air in this direction. When you have looked upon the wonders of the Vatican, have seen the Colosseum by moonlight, and have driven out the Appian Way you will recognize the antiquity of it.”

“And when we have seen the Catacombs and the Forum and all that, I am sure we shall know it is Rome. There are some soldiers, Sid.”

“Yes, the old Prætorian camp was not far from here and is still used, I am told.”

“There! what do you want more antiquely suggestive than that?” said Gabriella. “Imagine Peter and Paul and all those perhaps walking over this very spot.”

“Yes, but it didn’t look then as it does now,” said Sidney, who had not recovered from the blow to her expectations. “Is this the house, Gem?”

Miss Cavendish alighted and made her inquiries. “Seven flights up, girls, and no lift. This is dreadful. If I had only thought to inquire what floor the pension was on I would never have engaged our rooms here. I see visions of a worn-out trio when we are through with our sight-seeing.”

“Oh, well, if we don’t like it we can go somewhere else,” said Gabriella cheerfully. “You know it was hard enough to get in anywhere and I am sure this looks very nice. Now, what we want to do is to get in out of the rain.”

They were not impressed with the accommodations offered them, but the city was overcrowded, there being the Easter visitors still remaining and now supplemented by those who had arrived because of the promised pageant in honor of a visiting dignitary, therefore it was decided to make the best of it, though the table was poor and the rooms unattractive. Still, the neighborhood was a convenient one, and their hostess was a person of unusual intelligence, ready to give them any information they stood in need of.

“We shall have to stand the dreadful butter and the awful bread for the sake of the mental stimulants we obtain here,” said Gabriella. “When we cannot stand it any longer we can get something at one of the rias outside. I noticed that there is a latteria, a drogheria and a beccharia just over the way,” she added glibly.

“For pity’s sake,” cried Sidney, “how could you notice and remember all those names?”

“Oh,” returned Gabriella nonchalantly, “I am learning the language from the signs; I find it an excellent way. I feel the need of sustenance this very minute after that sample luncheon. Will you come with me, you two? I will treat you to some chocolate, then we will go to the office, where I hope we may find some letters.”

“I am developing a craze for photographs,” Sidney announced a day or two later. “I cannot pass by a shop where they are displayed without wanting to rush in and get some. We must all go to Anderson’s some afternoon, and I will treat you each to a dozen.”

“Dear Sidney,” exclaimed Gabriella, “I adore you when you say such things. And that reminds me, Gem, Sidney is developing a romance, or I am, I don’t know which it is. We were standing on the Palatine hill looking at the Italianness of a street down which two soldiers were slowly riding. A perfect riot of roses overhung the wall on one side, and one of the soldiers reached up to gather a rose, which he held in his hand as he rode along. Just as he was opposite us he looked up and kissed the rose—to me or Sidney? I don’t know which; I only know he had the most glorious eyes in the world and that he looked a picture. The strange thing about it is that I met Miss Bailey on the street afterward and as we stood there talking, who should step up but this same beautiful military person. I recognized him in a minute, and I almost think he recognized me. To marry an Italian and live forever in Italy, what bliss! On second thoughts, would it be? At all events I am not likely to have the chance of trying the experiment, for all these Italians of good family are poor, Miss Bailey says, and are on the lookout for American heiresses. I forgot to ask Miss Bailey what had become of Taffy, I was so taken up with the sojer man.”

“Taffy?” said Miss Cavendish inquiringly.

“Yes, the Welshman, you know. Mr. Owen Morgan.”

“Am I to continue to have these romances thrust upon me?” said Miss Cavendish. “I ought to have taken that possibility into consideration. If you are to have decayed Italian noblemen and thieving Welshmen tagging us all over the country, what will become of us?”

“Did you say thieving Welshmen, Gem?”

“Yes, Taffy was a thief as well as a Welshman, wasn’t he? and if he attempts to steal either of my goddaughters he will hear my opinion of him.”

“Now, don’t get disgruntled, Gem dear; you are in quite as much danger as we are. I am not a heroine and Sid will not make the most of her opportunities. I am trying to persuade her to do her hair differently, and to discard that flippy-floppy blouse she wears. She could look stunning if she tried. She is the dearest thing in the world, but she has no more style than a well-worn rag-baby, and you know it is your own fault, Miss Sidney.”

“When we get to Paris we will put her in the hands of a first-class dressmaker and stand over her while she decides upon her costumes.”

“That will be fun. You can hold yourself in readiness, miss.”

“I am afraid I shall have spent all my money by that time,” said Sidney; “there are so many enticing things to buy.”

“Wait till you get to Florence and see the goldsmith shops,” Miss Cavendish warned her. “Now, if you have nothing else on hand, this afternoon, girls, I propose we go to San Paolo fuori le mura.”

“St. Paul without his gates,” said Gabriella flippantly. “How shall we go, by tram, or shall we take a cab?”

“Perhaps we would better go the democratic way by tram and save our cab hire for our drive on the Appian Way.”

“The Protestant cemetery is not far from San Paolo, is it?” said Sidney, looking up from the Baedeker she was poring over. “We might take that in, too. I’d like to lay a flower on the grave of Keats.”

“Shelley’s grave is there, too, isn’t it?” asked Gabriella.

“Yes,” Sidney consulted her book, “he is buried there, though his heart was sent to England. We shall find the graves of Trelawney and Constance Fennimore Woolson, too, as well as those friends of our childhood, Mary and William Howitt.”

“Come along then. If we have all those to look up we’d better be moving.” And Gabriella led the way.

“I think all the world must be possessed to visit St. Paul without the gates,” remarked Sidney a half-hour later, when they tried vainly to gain a place in the crowded cars.

“Shall we give it up?” said Miss Cavendish, looking discouraged.

“Never. There must be an end to this dreadful rush at some time,” said Gabriella. “It cannot be eternal. Meantime I shall amuse myself by seeing just how cheaply I can buy some of those mosaics that are being so constantly thrust upon us. I have been waiting for exactly such an occasion when I should feel savage enough not to weaken when a dirty little urchin with glorious eyes should offer me marvellous blue and rosy-posy pins for half a franc. I cannot resist them, when after I have shaken my head at them they say ‘No-a,’ in that pathetic way. To-day I am judicial and shall select with calmness and—”

“There comes our car,” cried Sidney, making a rush. And the mosaic pins were left behind.

“The imposing effect of the vast dimensions and the costly materials of the church is best perceived from the west end of the nave,” read Miss Cavendish from her guide book; “consequently we go to the west end of the nave. It is fine, very fine. I think I like it as well as any church in Rome.”

“It is very impressive,” murmured Sidney. “There is a good deal of color, too, not garish, but effective. I suppose it would be heresy to say that I consider St. Peter’s a bit garish. I like quiet simplicity better than feverish ornateness, don’t you, Gabriella?”

“Yes, I certainly do, and I like all this very much, though I specially want to see the cloisters; those I expect to charm me. I begin to feel very religious when I think that St. Peter and St. Paul had all sorts of doings around here. That little chapel just beyond the gate is where they parted on their last journey; over there in that direction is where St. Paul was executed, and here he was buried. He was a great and fearless person, though I always preferred St. Peter, myself; he was so delightfully human.”

“They say this was even a finer church before the fire of 1828,” said Sidney, viewing with interest the portrait medallions of the popes. “What a number of those old fellows there have been. Dear me, I feel thankful for every morsel of Bible study I have ever had; I only wish I had studied more.”

“It isn’t the Bible study for which I feel a crying need,” confessed Gabriella, “it is history and languages. Ah, here are the cloisters. Just look at those beautiful twisted columns; those mosaics. Now I am happy. You were right, Gem; it was well worth the trouble of getting here.”

“We might walk to the Protestant cemetery; it’s not far, they tell me,” said Miss Cavendish as they issued from the church. “The cars are so crowded, and if we need a cab we can take one after we leave the cemetery.”

They started out valiantly, but stretch after stretch of road was covered and they seemed no nearer the cemetery than at first. Finally Sidney stopped short. “I cannot go another step,” she declared. “Do let’s call a cab.”

But, alas, no cab was in sight nor did any appear, and the weary pedestrians at last sat down by the roadside to rest.

“We may as well go on,” said Gabriella after a few moments spent in a contemplation of their surroundings. “We gain nothing by staying here, and, really, it cannot be very far now. When you are rested, Sidney, we will go on, and if an empty cab overtakes us we can hail it. What do you say to that plan?”

“I agree,” returned Sidney, rising to her feet again.

“Just before the gate is reached a short side street on the left leads to the Protestant cemetery,” read Miss Cavendish. “I think I have strength enough left to get there, for the gate is just ahead.”

But Sidney succumbed again before they reached their destination. “I positively cannot go on,” she declared. “Leave me here, you two, and go explore for yourselves. I am not going to move from this spot till a cab comes along.” She sank down on a stone by the way and Miss Cavendish followed her example. “It is exhausting,” she sighed. “If I had known there were no cabs to be had in this direction and that it was so far I never would have come.”

“You all haven’t a bit of pluck,” said Gabriella, laughing. “Here when we are within sight of the place, to say you won’t go on is ridiculous.”

“Yes, but though that may be the wall of the cemetery, who knows where the gate is? And even if that were close at hand, how many miles shall we have to walk before we find Keats’s grave? No, not for all the dead poets that ever lived will I drag myself further. I shall faint if I do, and will have to be buried where I lie, another victim for the Protestant cemetery.”

“That is all nonsense,” said Gabriella. “At all events, I shall go and explore a little further.” She sauntered off up the street and presently they saw her applying her eye to a hole in the wall. Then she began to beckon violently.

Miss Cavendish watched her with interest. “She has discovered something,” she said. “I think I must go and see what it is.” She started off to meet Gabriella, and Sidney obediently followed.

“It’s right here,” Gabriella announced as they came up. “You can see for yourselves. I peeped through that little hole in the wall and there was Keats’s grave directly before me. Wasn’t that remarkable?”

Encouraged to new effort by this discovery, the three set off for the gate, gained entrance and laid a memorial flower upon the graves of the two poets. “I shall never forget them now; never,” said Sidney. “I shall hold them in remembrance forever after this tramp. Please don’t walk me outside the gates again, Gem. If I must go, let it be in a cab, or any way but on foot.”

“It was a mistake,” said Miss Cavendish, “and I will promise not to lead you astray again. I move we do not go back to dinner, but take the first cab that comes along, drive to the Pincian hill and watch the crowds, and then go to a café and have dinner.”

“That will be lovely,” cried Gabriella, “and you will pick out one of those dear little out-door places, won’t you? I do like them so much better than the stuffy, smelly in-door ones.”

“If we can find an attractive one, as I have no doubt we can.”

In the course of time an empty cab came along and they were soon a part of the throng which crowded the Pincio.

“There is Miss Bailey over there,” said Sidney, nudging Gabriella, who, with head held high, was looking persistently in another direction.

“I know it.”

“You saw her? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Didn’t want to.”

Sidney gave her a glance of surprise, then turned her attention again to Miss Bailey. She was accompanied by Signor, the count Rondinelli, and behind her walked Miss Mildred and Mr. Morgan.

Sidney glanced back at Gabriella, whose head was still resolutely turned. It was at that moment that Miss Cavendish caught sight of her acquaintances and she stood up. Miss Bailey, looking that way, recognized her, and pushed her way through the throng to where they were sitting. “My word!” she exclaimed, “fancy finding you here. When did you come? Isn’t there a crowd to-day? One can’t get on at all. Fancy my seeing you among so many.”

“It is a wonder that we saw you,” returned Miss Cavendish. “Sidney! Gabriella!” But Gabriella had fled. “Where is that perverse child?” Miss Cavendish asked Sidney.

“She wanted to walk up the road a little way. She said she would come back.”

“Perhaps she saw some one she knew,” remarked Miss Cavendish. Sidney turned the conversation, but out of the tail of her eye she espied Mr. Morgan followed by the count, both elbowing their way along in the direction Sidney had indicated.

“I sent the count for Miss Thorne,” said Miss Mildred, “and Mr. Morgan must have thought I meant that he should go, too.” Her eyes followed the two, and Sidney smiled, for there was Gabriella with her two attendant cavaliers, utterly regardless of the havoc she might be playing in Miss Mildred’s virgin heart. This fluttering, girlish creature nearly twisted off her thirteen jewelled rings, drooped her shoulders more depressingly, and rattled her many chains with more abandon than ever as she stood talking to Sidney in nervous excitement, her eyes following the fast receding trio. At last she stood on tip-toe when the top of Mr. Morgan’s hat was the only object by which the three could be identified, then even that vanished, and Miss Mildred drew a sigh.

Miss Bailey turned around suddenly. “It’s so curious”—she pronounced it kyarrious—“how independent you Americans are,” she remarked. “Now I should never think of allowing Mildred to leave my side in a place like this.”

“Really?” said Miss Cavendish. “But Gabriella is not alone, and she permits me to leave her side, so why should I not accord her the same privilege?”

Miss Bailey looked at her with vague distrust. Was this American chaffing, or did Miss Cavendish really not appreciate the situation? As the years of the younger Miss Bailey outnumbered those of Miss Cavendish by half a decade, it may be supposed that Miss Cavendish did not appreciate the situation.

CHAPTER VI
ROSES

“Rome is so big, so impossible to get acquainted with in less than years of time, that I think we would do as well to go on,” said Miss Cavendish at the end of two weeks spent in assiduous sight-seeing.

“Especially as we have not a good pension, and as the town is so crowded,” put in Sidney.

“Oh, for dear Sorrento! all that deliciousness for six francs a day, wine and lights included,” sighed Gabriella for the tenth time since she had arrived in Rome.

“I think we will see then what Florence can afford us. I have written to two or three places there for rooms and have just received some very satisfactory replies. We really are not any too happy here,” said Miss Cavendish.

“And we have worked, yes, really worked, harder than anywhere else. In two weeks we have tried to see what we could never master in less than ten years. I am tired,” replied Sidney.

“Then we will go on, if you and Gabriella agree.”

Gabriella did agree, and declared that she was yearning for the Uffizi and the Pitti galleries. Therefore they shook the dust of Rome from off their feet and were borne along in a crowded train toward the city of Dante.

“Tea will be served immediately,” said the little maid who showed them to their rooms when they had reached their pension.

“Tea?” exclaimed Gabriella as the maid departed. “This certainly promises better than Rome. Oh, Gem, we can afford to stay here for a long time: rooms that overlook the Arno, tea and—”

“Wine and lights included,” laughed Sidney.

“Yes, actually, and all for five francs a day. I don’t see how they do it. I hope they will not starve us as they did at the last place.”

“My dear,” said Miss Cavendish, “I have learned one thing: when you want home comforts abroad, don’t go to a boarding-house kept by one of your own countrywomen, especially if she be a missionary.”

The girls’ spirits rose as time went on, for not only were their rooms exceedingly comfortable, but they found the fare excellent. To be sure the house was old and dingy, and it was not of spotless cleanliness. “But for Italy, well, we might go much further and fare worse,” remarked Gabriella.

“One could go as far as America and not begin to have all this,” declared Miss Cavendish, whose experience of American boarding-houses was not limited. “I do not know where at home we could find good beds, cheerful, prompt and skilled attendance, delicious food, fresh flowers on the table every day, a hostess anxious to please, all for a dollar a day.”

“Wine and—” began Gabriella mechanically. And then they all laughed.

The days went by all too rapidly, and a week passed before they knew it. “I could hang out this window all day,” remarked Gabriella, after Sidney had called her two or three times on Sunday morning. “There is so much to see along this river front. I have been watching a gentleman spruce himself up for Sunday. He has taken off his shirt, washed it in the Arno, and you may see it there spread out on the steps in the sunshine while he sits complacently in his coat waiting for it to dry. Isn’t that the simple life exemplified? Yesterday I beheld a scene worthy of a French novel. Two washerwomen took to fisticuffs and dragged each other over the face of the earth by the hair of the head. It was dreadful, and yet I had to watch to see whether the big or the little one came off victor.”

“And which did?”

“Neither, for two men separated them, but there were Vesuvius-like mutterings all day, and doubtless by this time one or the other is badly done up. The Italians are so impulsive, you know.”

“That’s a mild word for such a performance,” said Sidney. “Come, do hurry, Gabriella, we want to go to the Cathedral.”

It was at the Uffizi that they ran across the Bailey party again. They were standing before a Titian, Baedekers in hand, looking at the picture with a half interest.

“Miss Mildred still wears her chain bracelet,” whispered Gabriella.

“Yes, and she has a new chain; that makes three that she is wearing. I suppose the last is one that she has bought here,” returned Sidney.

“I wonder of what the chain bracelet is the symbol,” said Gabriella. “Every Englishwoman we have seen has worn one. I should really like to know the why of it.”

“There is Mr. Morgan with his friend, the German,” exclaimed Sidney. “Shall we discover them or let them discover us?”

“We can move along a little and let them be the discoverers,” said Gabriella; “it will be more dignified.” But as she spoke Miss Cavendish had recognized the others and in a few minutes the two parties had become one.

At the end of half an hour Gabriella found herself with Mr. Morgan, separated from the rest. “Dear me, where are they?” she exclaimed, looking around in dismay.

“They can’t be very far,” Mr. Morgan assured her. “It’s jolly easy to lose one’s way in a place like this. We’ll meet them at some convenient point, no doubt.”

“And if we don’t I am so near home that it makes little difference,” said Gabriella, resolving not to trouble herself. “This place is such a joy; in fact, Florence is all a joy.”

“It’s rather a nice old place,” said Mr. Morgan.

“Oh, dear, why can’t you English be more enthusiastic?” exclaimed the girl. “You never rise to superlatives unless you use horrid words like beastly and rotten, and even then you don’t rise, you sink.”

Mr. Morgan laughed. “And you Americans are so very enthusiastic. You rave over such remarkable things.”

“Who wouldn’t rave over that Botticelli, for example? I suppose you would say that is not a superlatively fine picture.”

“No doubt it is for those who care for Botticelli.”

“And you don’t?”

“I care for others more, though I do see some things to admire in his work.”

“Then let us go on. I will not stand here with such an unenthusiastic person. I will come back when I can gloat over this by myself. I want to be with some one who can rave or with no one at all, when I look at a picture like that. If there happens to be anything in this collection which appeals to your fieriest ardor, lead me to it.”

Her companion laughed and sauntered leisurely on, Gabriella following. At last he paused before a madonna of Andrea del Sarto’s. “Is this it?” asked Gabriella.

“Do you like it?”

“Ye-es. Please let me hear you rave.”

“I did not promise to.”

“You are trying to fool me. I am sure this does not appeal to you more than anything in the gallery.”

“No, but I like it. Don’t you?”

“I do, but I always see del Sarto’s horrid little wife in all his Madonnas. They all have that discontented expression, and they make me mad. I always think of Browning’s poem on poor Andrea. Oh, you little beast!” She shook her fist at the picture to the horror of a group of Italians standing near. Seeing their shocked looks, Gabriella laughed. “They think I am somebody dreadful; an anarchist, no doubt, or a lunatic, at the very least. I forgot what the picture represented; I was thinking only of the model. Now show me something that you really do admire.”

“Here is something; Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II.”

“Do you admire it because Baedeker gives four and a quarter lines to it?” Gabriella asked saucily.

“No, because it is rather a good thing. You have seen the Madonna della Sedia, of course. You must admit that it is beautiful.”

“It is much more beautiful than I expected to find it, for when poor reproductions of an exquisite thing are scattered broadcast over the earth, it is hard to see the beauty when you come face to face with the original. I sometimes wonder if after all it isn’t a mistake to familiarize the masses with the beautiful through such means.”

“I think it is well, if it is not overdone.”

“And the tendency is to overdo. Santa Claus, even, is no longer a mystery when every cheap John shop has a mock figure of the saint in the shop window, performing tricks for a gaping crowd, and he is even reduced to the base purpose of advertising some quack medicine as he stands on the corner and gives out hand-bills. That is one thing I like about Italy; it still retains some of the old illusions. We are fast out-growing them at home.”

Mr. Morgan looked down at the girl with an amused expression. “For a young person of your tender years, that sounds rather blasé, and from you who adore enthusiasm, too.”

“That’s just it; I love enthusiasm. I don’t want to outgrow my dear illusions, and I do not want to be compelled to use the modern process of dissecting everything. I would rather not tear the veil from the mysteries. Let the children of this world make their discoveries for themselves.”

“Here is something that’s not half bad,” said Mr. Morgan, stopping before a fine portrait.

“You like Titian, don’t you?”

“Well, rather.”

At this moment Sidney came upon them from a side gallery. “Oh, here you are,” she said. “We are ready to go, Gabriella. Miss Bailey is coming with us. She wants to try a meal at our pension. She is nothing if not enterprising in adding to her addresses. She has just given Gem six for Venice, and grateful Gem has asked her to lunch, or is it breakfast we have at this hour?”

“Where are you all?” Gabriella asked.

“In the Tribuna waiting for you. Hasn’t it been a perfectly delightful morning? Have you and Mr. Morgan seen everything?”

“We have seen several things. No one could see everything here in one short morning,” returned Gabriella. “I hope I am not the kind of American who rushes about Baedeker-possessed, and only looks at the things he stars. I have the greatest respect and affection for my Baedeker, but I do like to observe with some sort of originality. I saw several rushers this morning. Do you remember the one on the steamer that we called the Microbe? She was here.”

Sidney cast an amused look at the young man standing by, who looked unmistakably puzzled. “I remember,” she replied.

“I asked her if she had seen a delicious little thing in one of the rooms, and she rustled over the leaves of her guide book and said: ‘Baedeker hasn’t starred it; I don’t believe I have looked at it.’ ‘He hasn’t even mentioned it,’ I said, and she looked at me as if I were some sort of queer specimen. I suppose she wondered at my daring to form an unauthorized opinion. Isn’t it a blessing to have a mind of your own?”

Mr. Morgan laughed. “You certainly have. Is that Miss Mildred over there buying photographs?”

“I wonder if she is buying another Madonna,” said Sidney. “She has bought three already, none of which is the special one she is looking for.”

“Why does she buy them, then?” asked Gabriella.

Sidney laughed. “I don’t know. She discovers only too late that what she has just bought is not her favorite.”

“Well, I never,” remarked Gabriella, reserving further comment till she should be alone with her friends.

Miss Bailey now saw them and came fluttering up, her sister following. The latter was all filmy veil and dangling chains with clinking ornaments. Her manner was that of a belle of the last century, for she dipped and tripped and undulated to the last degree. Evidently she considered Mr. Morgan her especial cavalier, for she chid him for so long deserting her, tapping him playfully with her fan. Miss Cavendish here joined them and all took their way to the street.

“And where is Herr Muller?” Mr. Morgan asked Sidney.

“He has gone back to his hotel,” was the answer.

“He though you were lost, naughty boy,” said Miss Mildred, catching the remark, “and he went to find you.”

Mr. Morgan made no reply, but a few minutes later, when he and Gabriella fell a little behind the others, he said: “Let us give them the slip this afternoon, and go to the rose gardens of San Miniato.”

“Oh, I can’t,” returned Gabriella, after a moment’s hesitation, “I’ve promised to go haunt the goldsmith’s shops with Sidney.”

“The ones on the Ponte Vecchio?”

“Yes; and we are anxious to see Casa Guidi windows.”

“You will be disappointed in them, but you will not be disappointed in the Boboli gardens, if you are going there. I may be on that side the river myself, this afternoon.”

“I thought you were going to San Miniato.”

“Not by myself.”

“There is Herr Muller.”

“Yes, but one wants to see roses under special conditions. You remember how you feel about the Botticellis; grant me the grace of feeling so about roses.”

“But Herr Muller would surely say wunderschoen often enough to please you.”

“He might, but I don’t want any but English enthusiasm.”

“I am sorry American is not sufficient for you, but there is Miss Mildred,” said Gabriella wickedly.

Mr. Morgan’s face immediately became imperturbable, and Gabriella felt a little ashamed of her small fling at the older woman. She relieved her confusion by exclaiming, “Oh, see those lovely saffron roses that man has. They remind me of Sorrento. I must get some for Gem. Think of it! only twenty centimes, four cents.” She buried her face in the flowers, exclaiming: “You beauties, how I adore you!”

“I knew you loved flowers,” said Mr. Morgan, “and that is why I want you to go to San Miniato with me.”

“I will go to-morrow,” said Gabriella hastily, turning aside to give the roses into Miss Cavendish’s hands.

The glory of an Italian spring lay over the gardens of San Miniato. Thousands of roses gave a responsive loveliness to the favors of sun and soft air. Gabriella, who had felt a little guilty at leaving her comrades out of her plans, and who had wondered if it were quite the proper thing to make this excursion with so recent an acquaintance, lost all sense of discomfort when she saw the loveliness before her. “Ah,” she sighed, “it was worth coming to see. It is Eden before the fall. It is all the romance of Italy, all the sunniness concentrated in the hearts of these roses.”

Her companion smiled. “I knew you would express the poetry I can only feel.”

“And there are so many of them,” Gabriella went on. “I never could have believed it. Isn’t it lovely to be up here and to look down on the historic city? The Medicis, Dante, Savonarola, Romola, the Brownings, how they all come to one’s mind.”

“But don’t you know,” said her companion, “a simple Welshman of the engineering profession cannot follow you in these flights. I only feel the poetry of the roses, and I only see the Florence of to-day enveloped in a haze at my feet.”

“Oh, but surely, surely you have read Romola and some of Browning at least.” Gabriella was vaguely disappointed.

“I am sorry to confess that I have not read Romola, and of Browning I am scared.”

“You mustn’t be, and you must read Romola.”

“I will at once. I will stop on my way back and get a copy, and you shall pick it out for me, if you will.”

“That is better. I begin to have hopes of you. Before we leave Florence I may be able to set your feet in the right way.”

“And when do you leave Florence?”

“In a few days, I am afraid. There are some of the churches we have yet to see, and we have not been to Fiesole. To me Florence is almost, if not quite, as inexhaustible as Rome, and in many respects is more fascinating. Have you happened to see a funeral at night? It is the most impressive thing you can imagine. It is much more so than at Naples, where they carry an empty coffin and make a great to-do, but all in the glaring light of day. But we must be leaving this kingdom of Rosedom, for it is time to be getting back.” Her companion, however, lingered, and finally, under protest, filled her arms with roses and they returned to the city.

“Late to luncheon again,” said Miss Cavendish, as the girl came in. “We were just going down. What beautiful roses, and what a mass of them. Have you been squandering your substance in that kind of riotous living?”

“No,” replied Gabriella, depositing her burden in the water pitcher, “they were given to me.”

“Take care,” warned Sidney. “Roses will be your destruction yet. Remember the rose of Rome.”

“‘Ah, but where blooms the rose of yesterday?’” quoted Gabriella. “Who cares for the roses of Rome when one can have the roses of Florence?”

“And have you been mooning all morning over there at San Miniato?” Sidney asked.

“No, we have been sunning,” answered Gabriella, flippantly.

“What do you know of that Mr. Morgan?” asked Miss Cavendish in her most judicial tone.

“Let me see, what do I know?” returned Gabriella speculatively. “He is from some utterly unpronounceable place in Wales, but he was educated in England. He is a civil engineer, very civil, I should call him. His father was a clergyman, but he is no longer in the land of the living, and his mother died recently. The unpronounceable place he still calls home, but Owen ap Owen goes where his profession leads him. Just now he is off for a short holiday, having come here from Germany with the Misses Bailey, who were great friends of his mother’s. They were very kind to her once when she was ill away from home, nursed her as if they had been sisters, and have been devoted friends to her at other times, hence the young man’s sweet acceptance of Miss Mildred’s attentions. He didn’t tell me that last, but I draw my own conclusions, and gather that there is no harm in her little dabs and dips. I believe that is all I can report at this present time, but given the opportunity, I have no doubt I can satisfy any amount of curiosity on the subject.”

“Gabriella, Gabriella,” was all Miss Cavendish vouchsafed in reply as she led the way down to luncheon.

CHAPTER VII
“IN A GONDOLA”

The consequence of the morning’s adventure was that Miss Cavendish hurried away from Florence before these dangerous meetings should be repeated, and although Gabriella would like to have protested she confided to Sidney that she had not the face to do so.

“I have no business to give Gem frights when she is doing all this for me. It is very hard for me to behave myself with your perfect decorum, Sid, and though I was having a lovely time with Taffy, I could not say a word, for Gem feels responsible to mamma for me.” This was whispered confidentially during the journey while Miss Cavendish was absorbed in her Baedeker.

Venice was reached in the evening. Miss Cavendish had written ahead for rooms, and they stepped into the gondola they had selected, with pleasant anticipation of looking out from their windows, that night, directly upon the Grand Canal.

“Isn’t it perfectly delicious?” said Sidney. “Don’t you feel as if you were in a dream? We are actually in a gondola, Gabriella, and we are in Venice.”

“Don’t speak to me,” said the girl; “you might wake me up. I am perfectly happy, and I want to do this for the rest of my life. Oh, how queer it is to go threading our way along these narrow little waterways. Ah-h, this must be the Grand Canal, and here are the palaces, and oh, the color and the wonder of it all. You have given the gondolier our address, Gem?”

“Yes, and I think we shall find we have a good situation.”

The gondola drew up by the side of a tall gloomy building which Miss Cavendish remarked, must have been at one time a palace.

“And to what base uses has it come; harboring American tourists,” said Gabriella. “What ho, there! Do you see anyone about, Gem?”

All was silent and unresponsive, but at last, after repeated summons, the proprietor appeared. He spoke French readily. He was grieved to assure the ladies that not a room in his establishment was unoccupied.

“But I wrote ahead,” explained Miss Cavendish.

“But madame, the letter was never received.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Miss Cavendish as they pushed away. “He had my first letter all right, for he answered that. He probably had a chance of renting his rooms before we arrived and would not miss the opportunity of making a little extra money. Fortunately it is not the only place.” She gave the gondolier another address, and the gondola slipped along through the green waters until another halt was made.

“No room” was the report brought to them.

“Never mind; we do not need to be discouraged; I have six addresses here,” Miss Cavendish assured the girls, “and we shall have more of this delightful way of getting about.”

But Venice, like Rome, was overcrowded, and each time they were turned away they became a little more anxious till Miss Cavendish, at the end of her addresses, turned to the gondolier appealingly. It was growing darker and darker. The tall palaces loomed up each side, gloomy and silent. Lights from the large hotels flashed out upon the water. Black gondolas glided by, dusky, shadowy forms.

“I feel as if this were the river Styx and Charon were at the prow,” whispered Gabriella.

Sidney, subdued and troubled, turned to Miss Cavendish. “Do let us go to one of the larger hotels just for the night,” she begged.

“We shall have to, if no other place can be found,” was the answer. “I told our gondolier that we should have to sleep in the gondola unless he could get us lodgings, and he assured me that we need give ourselves no anxiety; he would find something.”

But place after place was left behind, and the gondolier, himself, became eager to settle his passengers. He was a pleasant young fellow, graceful and picturesque. He knew a little French and ventured a remark now and then, smiling at the worried ladies and bidding them take courage, he, Antonio, would not leave them till they were housed. There were rooms in abundance, but it took time to go from one house to another.

At last they turned from the Grand Canal into the broader Giudecca. Antonio ran lightly up the steps of his first stopping-place and in a few minutes returned, snatched up the luggage, and bade the ladies to follow him. Up the walk of a tiny garden their guide preceded them. A woman with a candle appeared at the door. She led the way upstairs to a dingy room which seemed in every way unattractive.

Miss Cavendish turned helplessly to the girls. “I don’t know about this,” she said. “I am a little afraid. It seems queer and out of the way and— Are you sure it is safe, good, well?” she asked Antonio. He responded emphatically that it was all things that it should be. He had discovered them lodgings, and evidently considered that he had done his duty. Miss Cavendish felt herself disarmed.

She meekly thanked him, paid him, and let him go. Then she turned to their hostess. Not one word did she speak of any language but Italian. But she was quick to understand that they wished another room, and led them to what appeared to Miss Cavendish as the very dingiest and most unattractive of little rooms at the back of the very small house. It seemed ill-smelling, and by the light of the one candle it looked bare of comforts.

“It will never do in the world,” decided Miss Cavendish. “I cannot let either of you girls sleep there; it is away off from the other room, and I am not willing to be separated from you.”

“It seems almost as if it might be the haunt of bandits, doesn’t it?” whispered Gabriella, her eyes big with anxiety. “Don’t let us stay here, Gem. I am afraid we shall all be murdered in our beds by morning.”

They returned to the front room, and Miss Cavendish viewed the possibilities. “If a bed were put up in this hallway, or whatever it is, opening out of this room, we could all be together, and if we locked all the doors, you see there is one at each end of the passageway, I think we could feel safe.” She made known her desires to the padrona, who, anxious to please, agreed to everything. A bed was set up in the little hallway; it was further furnished with a wash-stand and chair, and the tired travellers took possession, though it is safe to say that no one slept much, although the beds were comfortable, and they were undisturbed except by their own fears.

The next morning disclosed to their view a broad canal upon whose waters lay many ships, a stretch of land beyond showed domes and spires glittering in the sunlight, and above all was the bluest of skies. Below the window appeared a small garden where a woman, with a baby by her side, was gathering flowers. Miss Cavendish smiled at her fears. What had appeared at night to be ill-conditioned and forbidding, by daylight proved to be only unpretentious simplicity. The little house was old, the furniture dingy, but everything was very clean and the mother’s voice as she talked to the child had a caressing softness that dissipated Miss Cavendish’s last fears.

“Get up, get up, girls,” she cried. “We are not in the house of a bandit, but in the simple home of poor, but kindly people. There are flowers in the garden and a dear little prattling baby. I saw his mother’s face and I know she couldn’t do us harm.”

Here the padrona came in with aqua calde. She was very solicitous for the welfare of her guests. She gathered up skirts and shoes, returning with them well brushed. A little later she brought the breakfast tray; flowers adorned it, the linen was spotless, the coffee fragrant and well made, the butter fresh and sweet, the bread tender and delicious. Never was a more willing, devoted, anxious hostess. The three, whose alarms had kept them awake half the night, smiled at each other shamefacedly. And when at noon, a table was set for them out of doors under the vines, and such a dainty meal was served as they had seldom tasted, they concluded that Antonio was wiser than they.

“And we thought that dear, good little padrona with her big brown eyes and her wistful smile was a robber witch,” said Gabriella.

“And we were going to look for other quarters the first thing in the morning,” said Sidney. “I vote we stay.”

“Stay? Why of course we’ll stay,” said Miss Cavendish, “for I have learned from that nice looking Englishwoman with whom I was talking, when you came down, that our host has been cook to a prince, that he is one of the best in all Venice, that he has lost his savings by a bad investment and that he has begun life again in this small way, hoping to retrieve his fortunes. He is honest as the day, though very poor. I couldn’t have the heart to leave even if we were less comfortable.”

And indeed, as the days passed, they were more and more convinced that they had fallen on their feet, for never were more delicious meals served a party of appreciative females; never was more devoted service, never more real kindliness exhibited.

“I simply love the padrona,” said Gabriella. “I shall hate to leave her. She has so much sweetness and modesty, with a certain dignity which makes her gratitude to us pathetic.”

“And how delightfully quiet and away from crowds it is here,” commented Sidney. “I shall hate to leave this homelike little place. I like it much better than on the Grand Canal. We have our sky and garden if we are not in a palace.”

“And goodness knows, it is cheap enough,” put in Miss Cavendish.

“And there are no porters and waiters and maids to catch the unwary,” said Gabriella. “The dear little padrona is the only one who serves. It makes us wonderfully free, doesn’t it?”

“I feel as if I were one of the people,” said Sidney. “All I want is a black shawl. I have already begun to imitate the arrangement of hair practised by the Venetian women. I hope you notice it.”

“I do,” Gabriella told her, “and I congratulate you upon the change. Do get the shawl, Sid; it would be so funny to see you parade it at home in all its funereal simplicity.”

“I’ll get it to-day. Why is it, I wonder, that black gondolas and black shawls seem charming in Venice when anywhere else they would be too depressing for words.”

“It is because they are the accent in this riot of color. Everything here in Venice is in such a high key, that the touches of black are a relief rather than the opposite,” said Gabriella, who was quick to perceive and analyze effects.

“When our hungry souls have been sufficiently fed on the glories of San Marco and when we have gone again to the little bead shop on the San Moise; when we have seen the Santa Barbara and have taken another trip to the Lido, I suppose you girls will be ready to go on,” said Miss Cavendish.

“I shall never be ready to go on,” responded Gabriella. “We have hardly stopped in a place where I have not longed to linger for months. I am yet sighing for Sorrento while I adore Venice, and I pine for Florence while I have not had half enough of Rome. I want to go to San Marco at least a hundred times more, and I shall never get all the beads I want till I buy out the entire shop. Then there are the lace factories and the glass works to see; though I think we would better leave you at home, Gem, when we go to see the laces; you have nearly ruined yourself buying them as it is.”

“I think I have spent more in laces than Gem,” put in Sidney.

“One doesn’t have such a chance every day,” Miss Cavendish returned apologetically, “and it is so hard to resist beautiful lace. You know I bought very little jewelry in Florence, while you girls were actually spendthrifty.”

“We must have one more night in a gondola,” said Sidney; “it would never do to go away feeling that we might have had that pleasure and deliberately set it aside. No, Gem, we must stay a little longer. We may never find a place where we can be so delightfully free. Nobody knows us and we know no one; it is very lucky that it has happened so. We are sufficient for each other. We don’t have to bother about our goings and comings, our toilets, or, in fact, any of the usual conventionalities. We can sit on the steps of Santa Maria della Salute, and watch the gondolas and the sky and all the rest of it, with the working class, and nobody cares; or we can gather around our little table under the vines and discuss personalities with no one to comment. Oh, it suits me down to dots.”

“A gondola and moonlight,” murmured Gabriella, “does suggest other than female companionship.”

“You are thinking of roses and San Miniato,” Sidney declared. “I prophesy that your culminating romance must be connected with a rose. By the way, what has become of our military friend? Wasn’t he coming here? Have we been so happy as to escape him?”

“I hope so,” returned Gabriella. “We certainly saw enough of him in Rome. It seemed to me that we never turned a corner but his blue cloak was in evidence.”

“Who shall say that all girls are daffy over uniforms?” exclaimed Sidney. “Though I am sorry he can’t be here to make a romance for the gondola, since you require the masculine element. Gem and I can get along without it, and to-night we shall be happy while you will feel an aloofness because of an unfilled want.”

“You don’t suppose I am such a lunatic as not to get as much pleasure out of such a trip as you,” exclaimed Gabriella. “Am I to be accused of being blasé at this late hour? I, who have simply simmered and bubbled and boiled over with enthusiasm all the way?”

Sidney laughed. She had succeeded by her sly effort in arousing Gabriella’s indignation, and was satisfied.

Nevertheless the moonlight ride was not predestined to be lacking the masculine element, for, as the three were standing on the quay by the Accademia, who should step up to them with a joyous exclamation, but Signor Rondinelli, who, with his blue cloak thrown gracefully over his shoulders, looked extremely picturesque, so much so that Gabriella, with true artistic insight, decided that he made a most fitting accompaniment to the evening’s entertainment. He was eager in his polite attention, as if, having come up to the “fleeting joy,” he did not intend letting it escape him again. As the gondola drifted out upon the silent waters, glistening undulating ribbons of light were thrown waveringly from the windows of the palaces across the canal, slipping down from the golden brown of Gabriella’s hair to the shining beads around her neck, and then gliding off into the water. Miss Cavendish and Sidney spoke seldom, preferring the dreamlike quiet, but the steady murmur of low-voiced conversation came from the other two. Once in a while Gabriella’s light joyous laughter chimed out upon the night. From other gondolas came strains of music; the tinkle of a mandolin, a man’s mellow baritone in some gondolier; a woman’s soprano piercingly sweet in a pathetic love-song. At intervals the weird warning cry of the gondoliers added to the effect, and when at last they drew near their landing place, even Gabriella had hushed her chatter.

“THE GONDOLA DRIFTED OUT UPON THE SILENT WATERS.”

It was but a few steps to their lodgings and the girl peremptorily dismissed her cavalier at the steps of the quay. She watched the gondola glide away, then turned with a half sigh. “He is a dream in that blue cloak,” she said. “If every night were moonlight and if one might forever drift in a gondola it might do, but alas, there would be the gondolier to pay, and who would do it?”

“Why these enigmas, Gabriella?” asked Miss Cavendish.

She laughed a little amused laugh, in which there was a tinge of regret, too. “Only because Signor Rondinelli has made the mistake of thinking I was that boon to the impecunious nobility, an American heiress. He actually thought it was I and not Sidney who carried bags of ducats around with me, and—and—”

“And—what? There is an interesting emphasis on that conjunctive,” said Miss Cavendish.

“I was obliged to disabuse him of his impression, when he came to making love too violently. I can assure you I rather enjoyed the unwonted position until he offered me his hand and his honored name. So, Sidney, be on your guard; he will probably turn his attentions to you.”

“You didn’t tell him that I was an heiress,” said Sidney in dismay.

“No, but some one has told him that one of us is. Perhaps he thinks it is Gem. You’d better have a care, Isabella Cavendish, or you will yet occupy an Italian villa and possess beautiful old furniture and pictures, and perhaps all the Venetian point you can wear.”

“Not until I can buy it with my own hard money. Certainly not if an impecunious nobleman goes with the other goods and chattels.”

“Like a statement I saw once, where a man returning to Europe after a long residence in America, was said to have taken all his household goods, including the body of his mother,” remarked Sidney.

This took them laughing into the house, to be met by the little padrona, candle in hand to light them to their rooms.

But the influence of the night still lay upon Gabriella, and after she was ready for bed, she leaned from the window, her hands clasped, as she rested her arms upon the balcony rail. “And to-morrow we leave,” she said, as she felt Miss Cavendish’s presence at her side. “Must we go, Gem? How can I leave Italy thinking that I may never, never come back again? It hurts; it really hurts. I didn’t suppose I could feel so about anything less than a creature, an individual of humankind, but Italy does not seem a country; it seems a goddess upon whose breast we lie while she whispers tales of mystery and romance. She speaks in her pictures, her sky, her lovely land, her childlike people. She is something more than a place on a map. Don’t you feel so?”

“Yes,” sighed Miss Cavendish. “I, too, go with reluctant steps, for I have found the land of youth renewed and dreams fulfilled.”

CHAPTER VIII
FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN

“All of Italy that remains for us is to be compressed into the next two or three days,” said Sidney regretfully, as she watched the last red sail fade from sight upon the lagoons of Venice. “Oh that those days were limitless and that we could recover that lost power of the ancients who counted their years by centuries. If one might live to be as old as Methuselah, for example, it would be nothing to spend a hundred years in Italy. I almost believe I love Venice the best of all. How about you, Gabriella?”

“I am not sure. I think Sorrento comes first with me, and then Florence, though it is hard to decide. I think I love it all from the top of the boot to the toe, and would be satisfied to live anywhere in it between Switzerland and Sicily. How do you suppose Signor Rondinelli became possessed of the idea that I represented the wealth of the party?” she asked suddenly.

“Miss Bailey must have told him so,” replied Miss Cavendish. “She evidently discovered that one of us is not a pauper, and was under the impression that it was you.”

“Oh!” returned Gabriella, and lapsed into silence.

“I think it would be good fun if you would keep up that impression,” said Sidney, after a pause. “Think what numbers of romances you might have. Your personality plus gold would attract the heiress seekers as sugar does a swarm of ants.”

“But where would your innings be?” questioned Gabriella.

“I don’t want them. I couldn’t cope with those brilliant and beautiful soldiers if I had the opportunity. I think it would be much better to allow me the retirement my looks afford, and let you go forth to battle with the fortune hunters. I was ever ‘a violet by a mossy stone’ you know. I hope you did not tell the count that you refused him because you were not able to fill his coffers.”

“No, I must confess that I did not. I felt at the time that it was rather mean of me to keep on sailing under false colors, but now I am glad I did. I do believe, Sid, that it would be fun to change places. I should not in the least mind carrying out the plan, and should like to see confusion written in the various languages. I know how it appears in Italian already. Perhaps we shall have German next. It is a go, Sid. I am the heiress, if you please. You shall see how well I will fill the rôle without ever declaring in so many words what I wish to suggest.”

They watched the landscape from the car windows and presently Sidney nudged Gabriella. “Please to see our opposite neighbor. I envied him his neatly packed basket of luncheon when we came in, but I do so no more.”

Gabriella glanced at her vis-à-vis to behold a thin red stream trickling down upon the man’s shoulder. He was gazing out the window in utter unconsciousness that he was losing the better part of his flask of wine.

“Would you dare to tell him?” whispered Sidney.

“We needn’t, but Gem can. She is absorbed in her accounts, but when she has stopped reducing that last column of francs and centimes to dollars and cents, I’ll speak to her. She can’t bear to be interrupted when she is doing her sums, you know.”

“And in the meantime our Italian friend will lose all his wine, and what is a meal without wine to a Latin?”

“Tell him then.”

“Oh, I can’t; I shouldn’t know what to say, and Gem has the dictionary.”

Just at this moment Miss Cavendish looked up, a smile of satisfaction upon her face. “It is better than I thought,” she announced. “So far it has cost us but fifteen dollars a week apiece for everything, board, lodging, washing, travelling expenses and—”

Here Sidney clutched her. “I can’t stand it another minute. It will soak through. Please tell him.”

“What?” Miss Cavendish turned an amazed countenance upon her. “What are you talking about, Sidney?”

“That man, and his bottle of wine,” she whispered. “Do tell him that it is leaking.”

Miss Cavendish grasped the situation, and after presenting a disjointed sentence to their travelling companion, was given voluble thanks in perfectly good English, to the utter confusion of the girls. The bottle was then restored to a perpendicular position, while Sidney and Gabriella vainly tried to suppress an attack of giggles.

“And to think,” whispered Sidney, “we have been disclosing our inmost thoughts.”

“And Gem has gone so far as to confide to him the state of our finances. Did you ever know such first-class idiots as we are?”

“But he looks so Italian,” murmured Sidney, “as if he never had even heard a word of English before. I hope he does not understand enough to distinguish what we are saying under our breath.” But the rest of the way little was said by any of the three ladies, and when the Italian left the carriage, at Verona, all breathed a sigh of relief.

“All the same,” said Gabriella, after she had graciously returned the very polite bow he made at leaving, “we had our fun out of him, if we did afford him amusement. I wish, however, that we had let the wine drip its very last drop before we had told him.”

“You revengeful creature; I am sure he could not have been more unobtrusively polite,” said Miss Cavendish. “We never in the world could have told, by his expression, that he understood a word of what we were saying.”

“That’s just what I have against him,” returned Gabriella; “he ought to have looked as if he understood and then we shouldn’t have made such geese of ourselves.”

“Nevertheless, it was his intention to be as courteous as possible,” Miss Cavendish insisted. “Indeed, I think the most humble of these Italians could give us lessons in politeness. I shall never forget our dear little padrona’s beautiful courtesy.”

“Yes, and didn’t you feel like some high muckamuck when the entire family, even to the old grandmother, followed us to the water’s edge and stood there bowing till we were out of sight?”

“And they were so grateful for the largess we bestowed,” added Sidney.

“The smalless, you mean,” Gabriella put in, “for we do not break ourselves when we give tips.”

“I am sure,” said Miss Cavendish slightly aggrieved, “we give enough. It seems to me that I have tipped everybody and everything in Italy.”

“Except your soup plate,” broke in Gabriella saucily; “I notice you are never guilty of tipping that.”

Miss Cavendish paid no attention to the interruption but went on: “They usually expect so much from Americans, that I think it is unjust to others to give more than seems fair. I am perfectly willing to give as much as the service is worth, but when it makes it difficult for those who have to economize, I think one should forbear the overpaying. It is indulging one’s self in generosity at the expense of one’s fellow countrymen.”

“Shall you ever forget the bland way in which that delightful old fellow in Naples said, when we discovered that he had charged three prices: ‘but you are so reech-a and we are so poor-a?’ It seemed quite reason enough in his mind, and he was not in the least abashed at the fact of his having been detected.”

“They are like children,” returned Miss Cavendish, “and for that reason we can forgive them much.”

“We are leaving Verona,” said Gabriella, poking her head out of the window. “I didn’t notice it before. I wonder if our friend of the wine flask is one of the two gentlemen of Verona.”

“He certainly is a gentleman,” remarked Miss Cavendish, still defending their late companion. “Why do you smile, Gabriella?”

“Oh, only because I shook my head and scowled so savagely at two women who were making for the carriage, that they backed away and went into the next. I think now we shall have this to ourselves the rest of the way.”

“I don’t mind travelling with the people,” said Sidney. “They are rather entertaining, and one learns many things about manners and customs, in a train.”

“It seems to me that we had enough of it this morning,” said Gabriella. “If another man with a lunch basket comes in, I shall not be able to stand it, I am afraid. Why didn’t we get one of those nice little baskets, by the way?”

“Because we shall get to Milan in time for our next meal,” Miss Cavendish told her.

“Did you hear that American voice? Why do such people travel? What do they get out of a trip?” said Gabriella.

“What was she saying?” asked Miss Cavendish.

“She announced to the world at large, very much through her nose, that she meant to travel first-class. ‘I can’t stand them fumeries,’ was her parting remark. I suppose she came abroad because her opposite neighbor went last year, and she will travel as rapidly as she can in order to get over all the ground possible; three months, no doubt for an extended tour of Europe. Can’t you fancy it? Oh, Gem, you certainly were a wise woman not to join a party. What might we not have had thrust upon us?”

“You are a little too severe, dearie, for there is a deal to be gained from travelling with others. Travel at least ought to teach us to live and let live, and we ought to return home with a broader charity.”

“Or else with a ruined disposition,” returned Gabriella saucily.

“Answer for your own,” laughed Miss Cavendish; “mine has already been severely tested.”

“Wicked, bad old woman to talk so to her dear little goddaughter,” returned Gabriella. “I’ll never come over again with you.”

“Then I can bring Sidney, who never says naughty things to me.”

For answer Gabriella snuggled up close to the older woman, called her all sorts of pet names, and made “love-eyes” at her as she had done from babyhood.

“There is one thing we all must learn,” said Sidney, watching the by-play, “and that is to cultivate a gentle tone of voice. That woman’s rasping notes still ring in my ears. I notice that there are very few Americans whose voices cannot be heard above all others.”

“Oh, but consider; we do not screech like peacocks, as the Italians do,” said Gabriella in her slow drawl. “Do I speak like an American phonograph, Sid? If I do, I’ll talk no more.”

“Oh, you, no, I didn’t mean you,” returned Sidney quickly. “To be sure you would never be mistaken for an Englishwoman, still you neither whine, talk through your nose, nor clip your words. I think you will do if you will remember not to shout, nor laugh loud when you are excited; it is then that we Americans lose control of our voices.”

“Alas, alas,” sighed Gabriella, “I believe you are right. Please call me down when I soar too high, and I’ll do the same for you. Gem never forgets herself.”

“She has had the advantage over you of fifteen years of practice,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “and she has likewise lost her girlish excitability.”

“She has not lost her enthusiasm, though; she will never outgrow that,” said Gabriella affectionately.

But here Milan was reached, and Gabriella rushed from the train to find a porter to take the luggage. It promised to be a difficult task, for the passengers were many and the porters few. “Facchino! Facchino!” called Miss Cavendish, her head out of the car window.

“Facchino,” called Sidney the other side, but not one seemed able to spare time to attend to them.

Gabriella clutched first one and then the other, but all were already spoken for. “Do go and help the child,” said Miss Cavendish to Sidney. “I will watch the luggage.” And Sidney joined forces with Gabriella. Yet up to the time the train was ready to start not one disengaged porter could be found. “What shall we do?” cried Miss Cavendish in despair. “I can’t leave the luggage, and I must get off.”

“This is where our American system of checking seems mighty fine,” said Gabriella. “I’ll come in and we’ll tumble out the baggage, not luggage, if you please on this occasion. We can manage it somehow.”

But just here a soft voice behind Miss Cavendish asked, “What is the matter? Can’t we help you?” and turning, she saw two Englishwomen who had taken places in this special compartment. “The train will be going,” they warned her; “you’d best get off,” and they summarily bundled Miss Cavendish from the carriage, and by the strength of their own beringed hands and braceleted arms lifted the heavy hand trunks through the windows just in time for them to be received by their anxious owners.

“Oh, dear,” said Gabriella, looking after the departing train, “I wish I could run after it and thank them again. Did you ever see such dear kind things? I foresee plainly that I shall become an Anglomaniac before I sail for home. I must get myself in training, for now I see why the English girls of necessity must be athletic.”

“I feel quite overpowered,” said Miss Cavendish. “They were certainly friends in need. I suppose we might have lifted down those trunks ourselves, but every minute I hoped we could get hold of a porter, and I was afraid to leave the things for fear they might be stolen, or the train would start. That certainly was an experience I do not want to repeat.”

“We have never had any trouble before, and I have been so proud of my little trunk, but I begin to think it might be better to register.”

“Oh, no, we need not do that, I am sure,” said Gabriella. “We shall probably never have such an experience again, and we have saved no end of money by always having our trunks in the carriage with us wherever we went. I should not wonder if we could take them over the Simplon pass with us. Next time if we don’t get hold of a facchino right away, I shall lug them myself.”

After the quiet waterways of Venice, Milan seemed bustling and noisy. “I don’t like it,” declared Sidney. “Take out the cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, and it may share the fate of a buried city for all I care. It is noisy, wicked and uninteresting.”

“Ah, but the cathedral is well worth stopping to see,” said Miss Cavendish as they left the door of the great church.

“The light streaming across those vaulted arches was wonderful,” said Gabriella dreamily. “I shall never forget that, and as for the Last Supper, dilapidated as it is, there is nothing to compare to it in all the well preserved copies which share the room with it. Leonardo alone seems to have had a vision of his Lord. Oh, what a pity, what a pity that so great a triumph of art should be lost to the world as eventually it must be. Nothing has ever impressed me more. Surely Leonardo was inspired if ever artist was. No, Sidney, I don’t regret coming to Milan, though now that we have seen the cathedral and that great picture I want to go.”

“If it were the opera season,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “we might feel that it would be worth while to linger, but I agree with you, Gabriella, we have seen all that has any charm for us.”

“So now for the lakes and that heavenly ride over the Simplon pass. I know it is going to be heavenly.”

“Unless it should be a rainy day, and you know it is so likely to rain in the mountains,” said Sidney.

“You old pessimist,” cried Gabriella. “It isn’t going to rain, or if it does, only a very little, just enough for us to see the clouds rolling around the tops of the mountains and the beautiful distance breaking through as we come down into the valley.”

“What do you know about it?” asked Miss Cavendish.

“I am like the little boy who had eaten green apples and who suffered therefrom; when his Christian Science aunt insisted that he had no pain in his little tum, that it was only imagination, he said: ‘I reckon I know better than you; I have inside information.’ That is my case. My prophetic soul tells me that we shall have a glorious trip.”

“I most devoutly hope so,” returned Miss Cavendish, “for I have been thirsting for that mountain scenery for days.”

“Let me see, this is the plan, isn’t it? We leave early to-morrow morning for the lakes, spend a couple of days thereabouts and arrive at that place with the funny name—Domodossola, in the evening. I am sure I shall like that town or village or whatever it is. Then the next morning we get into a real diligence, and go over a real Swiss mountain pass, all snow and glaciers and such things. Much as I hate to leave Italy, I shall be glad to get to Switzerland, for I think Milan is an ugly link between the two, and I shall be glad to leave it.”

“But not the cathedral?” interposed Miss Cavendish.

“No, of course not; it is Milan’s saving grace, to my mind. Without that I should remember it only as a bad, ugly, noisy place and I don’t care who hears me say it. Besides, the maid told me to-day that among the lower classes cats are considered as an excellent article of food, and that the poor things, even when they are known to be pets, are frequently stolen to be cooked and eaten. Isn’t that horrible? Almost like cannibalism, isn’t it? No, I shall have no glad memories of Milan.”

“Gabriella, are you sure you are not making that up?” asked Sidney.

“No, I really am not. It was what the maid told me.”

“Then she was hoaxing you.”

“She seemed perfectly serious, and she speaks English very well, so I could not have mistaken her. No, after that hullabaloo that kept up in the street the entire night, I am ready to believe anything of this place, and I yearn for a peaceful Swiss valley.”

CHAPTER IX
BELLS

It was a temptation to linger in the region of the beautiful Italian lakes, but two days sufficed to give the trio such glimpses as made a lasting impression, and it was still May when they arrived in the quaint little village of Domodossola. Seeking the hotel which Miss Cavendish had selected as being a modest establishment, they were ushered into a large room with bare board floor. There were two beds in the room, and sufficient furniture for comfort, but the space was so large that there seemed shadowy corners fading away into dusky emptiness, and a stairway which led directly from the room to the floor below suggested all sorts of possibilities.

“Shall we dare to stop here?” asked Sidney. “I feel as if a company of bandits might creep up that stairway in the night and murder us in cold blood.” But Gabriella stole down the stairs and returned with the assurance that the door at the foot was securely locked on their side.

“There is a fascinating little balcony out here,” she said, opening the long window. “It is exactly like a scene in the opera, Fra Diavolo, I think. We are evidently right on the public square, the market place or whatever it is, and there are ever so many interesting things to see; the people themselves are like stage people. See that soldier sitting at the table down there with a friend, and the little maid waiting on them. I think she must be Zerlina. Don’t you expect to hear them troll out a drinking song? Oh, I am sure this isn’t a real place; it is a stage setting, and we have come into it by mistake, for we are a part of the scenic effect: ladies on a balcony. I wonder what kind of dinner they will give us. You see I am returning to stern reality.”

The dinner met their expectations, and was served in such a way as to heighten the stagey appearance of their surroundings. They spent their evening on the balcony watching the arrival of the market people who began to appear just after dark to prepare for the morrow’s market. All sorts of wares were brought in; vegetables, plants, dairy products, fish, clothing, notions and what not. A donkey bearing loaded panniers would be followed by a man bending beneath a burden packed upon his back; a man driving a cow and calf would precede a woman carrying a wicker basket filled with bleating kids. Another would bear a yoke, the two ends balanced by bundles whose contents could not be discovered. Queer stocky figures many of these Swiss peasants had, big heads set on bodies scarce larger, but with sturdy thick arms and legs which looked as if they might have belonged to a taller race. “Misfits,” Gabriella called them, but the broad faces, if stupid, were good-natured, and the stout legs were able to carry them up many a steep mountain climb.

Till a late hour the bustle of arrivals kept up, but just as the weary travellers had dropped into their first slumber they were awakened by the sonorous notes of an unusually fine street-organ. “There’s the orchestra,” said Gabriella sleepily; “the opera is about to begin.”

“It is really the finest perambulating organ I ever heard,” said Miss Cavendish; “at first I thought it was a full brass band. Imagine hearing such a thing away up here in this little mountain village.”

“I am much too sleepy to sing Zerlina to-night,” said Gabriella; “they will have to go on without me. I hope they have an understudy.” And she slept again.

In the morning when the travellers took their places in the diligence the market was in full swing, and the street below their windows was filled with a busy throng. With a jangling of bells and a snapping of whips the diligence swept out of town, and then began the delights of a day half sunshine, half shower, just as Gabriella had hoped for. The season was early and the snow still lingered in many places, but the power of the sun had set free many of the mountain streams which leaped in thread-like cascades down the mountain sides or dashed tumultuously through the valleys to join the river further on. The pass had been opened but a few days, and as the higher parts were reached the diligence clattered over an icy road through snow tunnels and along a way banked high on each side with masses of snow.

“And three days ago we were eating those dear little strawberries down there in Italy,” said Gabriella, “and were uncomfortably warm. See one of our horses eating snow, Sid; he takes a mouthful whenever he can snatch one as he trots along. Isn’t he funny? I like to see animals with individual tastes.”

“Isn’t it cold and grey and desolate away up here?” said Sidney. “Do you realize that we are far up in the Alps, Gabriella?”

“Oh, dear, yes. I am thrilling with appreciation at every revolution of the wheels. We are driving directly into a storm. I can see it ahead. It is lucky we decided upon these inside places, and that there is just room for the three of us. Everything is lucky and I am almost as happy as when I landed at Naples.”

“For enthusiasm commend me to Gabriella,” said Sidney laughing; “I believe she revels in the prospect of a storm here in these mountains.”

“I do revel,” answered Gabriella. “Don’t those clouds look weird wrapping themselves around that mountain top? Now the rain comes pelting, but I don’t believe it will last long, for we shall get beyond it, and down into that little green valley with its toy houses. I can just catch a glimpse of it down there.”

Mid-day brought them to Simplon where lunch was served and the horses were changed, then through ever varying delights of scenery they continued their journey, watching the clouds gather frowningly over some mighty mountain top, soon to break away and disclose patches of blue, which broadened into a sunshiny sky smiling over a verdant valley, and sending shining beams across the silver peaked mountains from which sparkling streams issued and forced their way in a myriad rainbow waterfalls to the river below. Quiet valleys, fields besprinkled with flowers of every hue, pasture lands where tinkling herds cropped the lush spring grass; all these fair visions appeared till the final stop was made at six o’clock in the little town of Breig.

“But we are not going to stay here,” Miss Cavendish informed the others. “We are going on to Visp; it is a smaller place, and I think we shall like it better. Then, too, we shall be that much nearer Zermatt, which we are determined to see.” So to Visp they proceeded, and arrived at a clean little inn overlooking a pretty garden where they found themselves the first guests of the season.

A perfect chorus of bells awoke the sleepy travellers in the early morning. To the gravely regular pealing of the church chimes was added a tinkling accompaniment of cow-bells and goat-bells as the herds skipped past the small hotel on the way to their pastures after the morning’s milking. Gabriella lifted her head drowsily. “I never knew what Alpine bells were before,” she murmured as she sank back into a semi-slumber.

After a while the chiming and tinkling ceased, and Miss Cavendish arose to look out upon the quiet, mountain-girdled village. The sun was shining gloriously upon the dazzling peaks. In the neat garden below early flowers were blooming. The village lay hushed and peaceful in the encircling embrace of the mountains, and seemed far away from the rest of the world. Nothing could exceed its quiet serenity.

“Get up! Get up!” called Miss Cavendish to the girls. “You are missing such glories as you may never see again.”

Gabriella sat up in bed. “Did you ever hear anything so sweet as those bells?” she said. “At first I thought I must be dreaming, and then I remembered all that I had heard of the melodious music of the Alpine bells.” She slipped on her wrapper and pattered across the floor to Sidney’s room. “Wake, harp and lute,” she called. “This is another world of enchantment. We shall have milk and honey and delectable food for breakfast, and then we must go and look upon that river that was tumbling and dashing through my dreams all night.”

Sidney needed no second call, and they were not long in occupying the places set for them alone in the homelike dining-room. But though in a land of flocks and herds, the butter failed to come up to their expectations, though the honey was in evidence. After deciding to take the noon train to Zermatt they started out to explore the village. Leaving the level plain of the main street they climbed up to where a quaint old church stood over against the bank of the brawling little river. The place was so quiet that it seemed almost as if they had it all to themselves, except when a group of children laughed out in their play or a woman’s voice was heard calling to a romping boy.

“I am glad we must come back to the dear peaceful little place,” said Sidney after they had said good-by to the rosy-cheeked, friendly little maid who watched them depart. “I think I like the name Visp, better than the French Viege; it seems to suit the village better.”

“Yes, it sounds keen and crisp like the air,” returned Gabriella.

“It was very near to being destroyed by an earthquake,” Miss Cavendish read from her book.

“I am glad it was spared for our delectation,” said Gabriella. “Now we have a mighty climb, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we go up nearly a thousand metres higher. Zermatt lies 1620 meters above the level of the sea.”

“Do tell me in feet,” said Gabriella. “I never can remember how much a meter is.”

“It is about 39 inches. Calculate for yourself,” said Miss Cavendish.

Gabriella shook her head. “I won’t attempt it, and I really don’t care to know about such sordid things as feet and inches at such a time as this. Did you ever see such a mad, brawling, utterly uncontrolled stream as this little Visp? I find it very satisfactory, for it is just what a mountain stream should be; it suggests glaciers and avalanches and banks of melting snow. It is so noisy, too, but I love its wild music, and I am glad to have made the acquaintance of such a charming, mad little river. I shall never forget it.”

“We get very close to some of these small villages,” remarked Sidney. “Some of them look as if they had come out of a box of toys and were made to set under a Christmas tree. I think I like those overhanging houses the best.”

“Glaciers before us and on every side,” announced Gabriella as they climbed higher, “and oh, the fields of flowers, hundreds and millions of delicate little bells of all colors. I am glad we came early, even if we do miss some of the sights. I do hope we shall find some of those lovely blue and pink and purple beauties when we get to Zermatt. I’d like to go right out into the fields and sit in their midst.”

“There is the Weisshorn,” exclaimed Miss Cavendish suddenly.

“Don’t let me miss the first glimpse of the Matterhorn,” said Sidney when they had recovered from this view of a mighty mountain peak. But at last when the wonderful, lonely, isolated white pyramid arose to view they were all silent and tears came to Sidney’s eyes. “I wish mother were here,” she whispered.

Gabriella gave her hand a little squeeze. “That’s just how I feel,” she said. “It is too splendid to enjoy without those you love best.”

They found but one hotel open, so early was it, and to this they repaired. It was delightfully comfortable, and since the regular season had not begun the prices were not beyond their expectations.

“I think it is a great scheme to come ahead of the crowd,” said Gabriella. “Everyone is so glad to see us, and they are glad to give us the best rooms and all the attention we want. Besides it is far more pleasant to find that the most beautiful places are not thronged with curious or indifferent tourists. Yes, I think it is wise to come to Switzerland when everyone thinks it is too early. There are enough people in the hotel to make us feel as if it were not kept up solely for our benefit, and to prevent our fearing that the cook will not put forth her best efforts. As usual we have done the right thing. You are such a bright and shining light of a personal conductor, Gem, that even when you scare us into thinking you have made a mistake it turns out to be the most fortunate thing that could have happened. Now, if you are ready we will climb up to those little huts on the mountain-side. I simply cannot wait to reach them.”

“Gabriella is in her most optimistic mood,” said Miss Cavendish. “I think she should write a book and call it: ‘Europe through rose-colored spectacles.’”

“But aren’t you ecstatically happy? Don’t you think just as I do?” asked Gabriella in a surprised tone. “If you don’t feel that way, you are my only disappointment.”

“In that case,” returned her godmother, “I shall have to acknowledge that I am in a state of perfect content, and that you are a large factor in making me so. Now we are ready, dear Impatience.”

The climb up the mountain-side was not difficult, and, yielding to the effect produced by balmy air, sunlit flower-strewn meadows, inspiring views of mountain and valley, their exuberance took them as far as the three huts. Their way was carpeted with flowers of such beauty and variety as they had not dreamed of finding, and Gabriella had her wish, for she could sit down in their midst. “I feel riotously prodigal,” she said. “I don’t know the names of any of these dear things, and I couldn’t do justice to them if I were to attempt to describe them, but I am going to gather just a very few to send to dear little mother; these forget-me-nots, and these harebells, or whatever they are, and that lovely white thing. Oh, the blue-bells, the cow-bells, the flower bells and the church-bells of Switzerland, how beautiful they are. What are you thinking of, Sid?”

“I was looking at this magnificent view, and was thinking that probably there are other places just as beautiful, of which we know nothing, and which are rarely visited by the general tourist. You know it is not so many years since Zermatt became known to travellers.”

“And were you wishing that you could happen upon such a place and enjoy it unspoiled? One does feel that way once in a while. It is selfish, I suppose, but it is quite natural,” said Miss Cavendish. “I hate to think of the flora of these mountains ruthlessly plucked up by hordes of visitors, so that certain varieties are getting scarcer every year. If it were not for the good work done by the Society for the Preservation of the Alpine Flora no doubt many species would disappear altogether.”

“Do you know that I have just thought that it is possible that the Gorner Grat railway is not running,” said Gabriella. “I can see the road, but I believe I have heard that it will not begin travel till the first of June. Oh, dear, I shall have to admit that I am to experience a disappointment.”

Their fears were realized when they returned to the hotel and were told that they were too early for an ascent by way of the railway. “Of course it is disappointing,” acknowledged Gabriella, “but there is so much to enjoy, that we can spare that.”

“Instead of blue glasses for these snowy peaks, Gabriella still wears her rose-colored spectacles,” remarked Sidney with a smile.

But the next day it rained incessantly and mountain climbing was out of the question. They did undertake a moist excursion around the town, stopped a moment with dripping umbrellas by the graves of the unfortunates lost in their adventurous attempts to scale dangerous peaks, but it was rather a desolate sort of expedition, and they returned to their comfortable quarters to make up accounts, write letters and to read the folk lore of the region, which was rich in legends and thrilling tales of perilous undertakings. Yet the weather did not encourage a longer stay than another night, and the next day they were welcomed back to their little inn at Visp by the cheerful, friendly maid whose exact position in the household it was hard to define, but who received them as if they were old and well-tried friends just returned from a long journey.

“If I were worn out, a blasé, nervously prostrated creature instead of the brisk spinster that I am,” said Miss Cavendish, “I should choose this restful little spot to recuperate in. I should enjoy a long stay here as it is, but with an American eagerness to see all that time and money affords I am afraid that forward must be the word. It is too early for that ride over the pass to Chamounix, and so I think we shall go right on to Geneva. I find few of the passes are open, and I am a little regretful, in spite of Gabriella’s enthusiasm, in the matter of being on hand early. I am afraid the vanguard doesn’t always get the best of it.”

“I don’t care,” put in Gabriella lightly; “I have seen the Matterhorn, and I would rather that than any other mountain. We can get a glimpse of Mont Blanc from Geneva, and we shouldn’t want to climb it anyhow. I am perfectly satisfied to go anywhere you want to take me; it’s all grist that comes to my mill.”

“Gabriella, you dear child,” said Miss Cavendish, giving her a hug, “your unwavering enthusiasm and cheerfulness are worth a fortune.”

“Just watch me when somebody offers me a fortune for it,” returned Gabriella, laughing.

“What is our route?” asked Sidney, looking up from the map spread out before her.

“We take the train as far as Villeneuve, and there we shall get a steamer which will carry us around the upper shore of the lake. My first intention was to stop off at Martigny and go by diligence to Chamounix, but as the pass is still closed to travel, we shall have to substitute this other route.”

“It is a lovely one,” declared the girls. “We shall be able to see all the dear little towns and the castle of Chillon, and all that.”

“We shall have plenty of time for luncheon at Villeneuve,” Miss Cavendish told them, “and we shall reach Geneva in time for dinner.”

“If we have a fine day it will be a perfectly delightful trip,” remarked Sidney.

“It will be a fine day,” decided Gabriella. “Have we had anything else except in Rome, and that time when we travelled first-class, and that was punishment for our extravagance, I am sure.”

“What about yesterday’s deluge?” said Sidney.

“Oh, that doesn’t count; it always rains in the mountains, and besides, that was another first-class venture, for it was a superior sort of hotel. We don’t go first-class this time, do we, Gem?”

“Only upon the steamer. I did want to see the ‘sweet vale of Chamounix,’ but I suppose it will be there when I next come this way.”

“Oh, that next time, that next time. How confidently we speak of it. It takes a deal of supposing to get to all the places we have to leave out now,” said Sidney.

“But we have all the fun of supposing,” said Gabriella. “I feel sorry for those persons who cannot enjoy air-castles.”

They reached Villeneuve at high noon. The streets of the clean bright little town seemed almost deserted, for everyone was at the mid-day meal. “I think it would be great fun to go foraging,” said Miss Cavendish. “What do you say, girls? Let’s go around to the shops and see what we can find; then we can have a picnic lunch down by the shores of the lake. There doesn’t seem to be a soul about, and we can go tramping where we like.”

The girls agreed enthusiastically, and they soon discovered a neat, appetizing little bake-shop which offered such a tempting array of rolls, buns and cakes that it was difficult to select from them. Cheese and salame were found at the butcher shop, the door of which was found to be locked, though a persistent rapping brought a breathless boy from around the corner, who, after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, opened to them. A grocer near by supplied fruit, chocolate and wine, so the well-laden trio took up a station near the steamboat landing, where undisturbed and unobserved they ate their luncheon with relish.

Comfortable places on the deck of the steamer were easy to find, and skirting the blue lake, touching at fair little towns upon its border, they continued throughout the afternoon.

“I like it,” announced Gabriella, after she had settled herself. “It is all blueness and mountain glistenings, and pretty white villaged towns and coolness tempered by sunshine. Lake Geneva is just what I imagined it to be. Now, if I had but been allowed to read Byron’s poems by my godmother I might repeat to you the ‘Prisoner of Chillon,’ but as I know only a few lines of it you will have to say it yourselves, if either one knows it.”

“I can only remember:

“‘There are four towers of Gothic mold

By Chillon’s dungeons dark and old’—

or is it cold? I forget,” said Miss Cavendish.

“And I can recall something about ‘My hair is white but not with fright,’ and I am not sure as to that,” said Sidney.

“Never mind, we all know the story, and it will mean just as much to us when we come to the place,” said Miss Cavendish.

“I’d like to make a circuit of the lake and stop at each little place for a day,” remarked Sidney, “and I should like to have done the same at the Italian lakes.”

“Shall we stop off somewhere? We can as well as not,” suggested Miss Cavendish. “You know we are burdened with only hand baggage.”

“If it were not for the letters waiting for us in Geneva we might,” said Sidney doubtfully, “but it has been so long since we could have our mail that I think we would better go on.”

“And Sidney will get that specially fat letter which she always grabs so eagerly and then flocks off by herself to read. Of course it is from her brother,” said Gabriella teasingly.

“A clean, wholesome, orderly, cheerful little city is Geneva,” Miss Cavendish made the comment when they were established in comfortable rooms, “but it need not delay us long, although we could find much to interest us here. It is the birthplace of many celebrities and has borne its part in many struggles.”

“We shall want to hear the musical boxes,” said Sidney.

“And we must go to the shops,” said Gabriella. “I have been told that they are excellent, though why I should visit them I don’t know, except from curiosity, for my pittance of spending-money is nearly gone now.”

“You forget your rôle of heiress,” said Miss Cavendish.

“So I do. Then I will pretend that I can spend with a lavish hand, and will pick out what I would buy if I could while you and Sid make the real purchases; that will amuse me and take off the edge of my desire.”

The pile of letters was waiting for them, and if Sidney slipped a particularly thick one in her bag, so did Gabriella start and look conscious when an unpretentious envelope, bearing the postmark “Florence,” was placed in her hand.

CHAPTER X
“CHIEFLESS CASTLES”

The week at Lucerne was one of perpetual rain, and the feast of Corpus Christi, which took the trio to the place at this special date, was a grand fizzle, for if it had drizzled and misted and showered during most of the other days, upon this special one was a steady downpour which prevented the annual procession from taking its route over the old bridges and interfered seriously with the parading of holiday attire. With her two charges, under the shelter of umbrellas, Miss Cavendish took up a position upon the steps of the Cathedral, where a dripping host passed them, climbing the way to the church. There was little to be seen of the advancing procession but a multitude of umbrellas held at various distances from the ground, water-soaked and overspread with running rivulets. Some marched bravely, disregarding the persistent flood, but the little girls, who had started out white-frocked and garland-decked, presented a sorry appearance as the red of paper roses and green leaves mingled with the pervasive moisture and stained the white frocks hopelessly. Draggled and parti-colored, these looked forlorn enough to bring distress to the countenances of the disappointed little girls.

“Lucerne is beautiful enough and attractive enough in every way to invite us to stay longer,” said Miss Cavendish, as they wended their way back through the sloppy streets, and under weeping trees to their pension, “but there seems to be no end to this rain, and what good are mountains hidden under a pall of cloud? What is the use of a lake upon which one dares not venture in a boat? Where is the enjoyment of a garden with wet paths and soaking benches? What are views seen through a veil of descending drops? I can imagine that when the sun is shining this is an entrancing place, but in rainy weather—well, I think we may as well move on. What do you say, my sweetings?”

“Oh, we are not so wildly enthusiastic about paddling around in rubbers and rain-coats as to object to any scheme you may have in mind,” remarked Gabriella. “Where next, Gem?”

“To Heidelberg, thence to Mayence, and down the Rhine to Cologne.”

“That sounds enticing. I’ll pack my trunklet at once,” said Sidney. “My imagination begins to riot among castles and crags and—”

“Students,” put in Gabriella. “Heidelberg suggests students first of all; the kind that wear different colored caps and go about with strange sabre cuts slanting across their manly faces.”

“There is a fine castle at Heidelberg, you know?” continued Sidney.

“So much the better; I like the combination of castles and colleges.”

“And the Black Forest practically begins there,” Sidney went on; “I always did want to see that.”

“I am afraid you will hardly see the edge of it,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “for I think we shall not linger long in Heidelberg. Not that it isn’t a place in which we could linger satisfactorily, but because it seems better to cover the ground more rapidly unless we have an abundance of time.”

They arrived at the old university town late in the evening, and took up their quarters on the pleasant Anlage. A concert was going on at the Public Gardens and thither they started after supper, to the delight of the girls, who realized that here would be a gathering of students and townspeople, too. It was a quiet, orderly performance. Discreet young women, properly chaperoned by smiling mammas, occupied chairs before which bowed favored young men, who, with mamma’s consent, bore off the damsels for a promenade while the music went on. Around and around marched the slow procession; here were old men and maidens, young men and children decorously pacing and talking quietly. Here were green caps, blue caps, red caps, set upon locks of varied hues and above seamed countenances which betokened that the wearer had participated in an encounter which, to his thinking, added glory to his student career. There was no disorder, no confusion, no undue hilarity. Before the tables where they indulged in moderate draughts of beer, sat groups of young men, elderly couples, or whole families. It was an interesting sight to the Americans, who at last arose and said regretfully: “Where at home could we sally forth by ourselves to an open-air concert where beer drinking was the correct thing, and where good music could be heard for such a modest sum as twelve cents? There are surely some things it would be well to import, among them the delightful freedom and comfort of cheap and respectable out-door entertainments.”

At the castle their enthusiasm grew in proportion as they climbed the height. The day was one of June’s fairest, and the gardens were at their loveliest. Below them nestled the houses of Heidelberg; beyond wound the silver thread of the Neckar.

“What a beautiful garden one Elizabeth must have had,” said Sidney. “Let me see. Do I remember rightly? The English building was built by Frederick V. for his princess, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, and not long before the thirty years war,” Miss Cavendish replied. “The oldest part of the castle dates from the fourteenth century, and it was the residence of the Electors Palatine. Count Palatine Otho of Wittelsbach, made the city the capital of his territory in the thirteenth century, and for five hundred years it was the principal town of the palatinate.”

“How dreadful that it should have been destroyed.”

“Yes, but what beautiful ruins these are,” said Gabriella. “I think the castle is much more picturesque than if it were intact. Such a tremendous place it was. To think that these thick, thick walls were battered in.”

“I think it was wicked and barbarous, in spite of its having been left a picturesque ruin,” said Sidney.

“We shall see other fine ruins on the Rhine,” said Miss Cavendish, “but I doubt if any be more interesting than this. Now if you are all sufficiently Baedeker-wise we will go back, and this afternoon we can take the Philosophenweg.”

“Not too early,” said Sidney. “They say it is not so pleasant when the sun is high.”

But they did start too early, and found it a hot and weary climb, though the discovery of cherry gatherers at the top of the hill somewhat compensated them for the long walk. For a few cents they bargained for as much of the luscious fruit as they could eat, and they sat down contentedly under the trees till the sun should sink lower and render their way back less uncomfortably warm.

“We haven’t had really more than a glimpse of Heidelberg,” said Miss Cavendish, “but I think it gives us a very good idea of the place. Are you content with what you have seen?”

“Perfectly,” declared the girls, and Gabriella added: “When I make a study of German I shall come here.”

“And to-morrow we go to Mayence and then on our Rhine trip,” said Sidney. “We shall stay all night in Mayence, shall we?”

“Yes, there are some things worth seeing there, and we shall want all day for the sail down the Rhine. At Mayence Gutenberg was born and there the first printing office was set up. There is a very old and interesting cathedral there, too, where the Tasso of Mayence is buried.”

“Who was he? Now I am interested,” said Gabriella.

“He was Count Heinrich von Meissen, surnamed Frauenlob, who during life was calumniated and insulted, but whose body was borne to the grave by the women whose praises he had sung. Mayence has many interesting pages of history, and it is full of tradition and relics. Its citizens still believe that it was in their city that Constantine the Great beheld his vision of the Holy Cross.”

“Was Heidelberg named for its castle or was the castle named for the city?” asked Sidney.

“It is said that the city takes its name from Heidelbeeren, or myrtles, with which the castle hill was covered in the long ago days when it was possessed by shepherds who led their flocks there.”

“And now there are flocks of students here nibbling in pastures of knowledge and finding laurels instead of myrtles,” said Gabriella.

“That’s not bad, Gabriella,” said Miss Cavendish. “The town has been five times bombarded, and burnt to the ground twice, while three times it has been taken in war and plundered by soldiers, so you see there are disadvantages in being too attractive.”

“I’d run the risk,” said Gabriella, “if I could be as attractive when I am old.”

“What a threatening stronghold that castle must have been, perched up so high above the town and overlooking the country around,” said Sidney. “No wonder it was considered worthy of an enemy’s worst. When was it besieged, Gem?”

“At the siege of Chantilly in 1693, but it was partially restored only to be struck by lightning in 1764, since which time it has remained a ruin.”

“When the baa-lambies stopped browsing on the hill, what came next?” asked Gabriella.

“Next came the Romans, probably. After a while it grew to be a market town and increased in importance as time went on. You remember Longfellow’s description of the castle, don’t you? It is in ‘Hyperion,’ and of course you have read it.”

“I have of course, but those things don’t make half the impression when one has not been to the spot. I shall read it with new interest.”

“There is much about Heidelberg in the tale. I forgot to tell you that the university was founded in 1386.”

“The dates that I have swallowed this day,” said Gabriella. “I wish I knew how to distinguish the student corps by their caps; there goes a blue one.”

Miss Cavendish turned over the pages of her book. “The Prussians wear white, the Westphalians green, the Vandals red, the Rhinelanders blue, the Swabians yellow.”

“So it is a Rhinelander stalking down the hill there,” said Gabriella, looking after the student. “Dear me, I am afraid I should soon get perfectly fascinated with Heidelberg.”

“Then we must hurry away,” said Miss Cavendish, “for the interest unfolds from hour to hour. The whole neighborhood seems to offer an endless number of walks and drives, and the whole countryside bristles with legends, so, lest we are tempted to stay here the rest of our lives, we must start for Mayence.”

They arose from their seat under the leafy tree and returned to the town to prepare for the next stage of their journey, and were in Mayence the next day in time for dinner. They found this a pleasant little town where excellent accommodations could be had at a small hotel. A view of the cathedral, a walk along the fine quay by the riverside occupied the few hours they had to spare before an evening meal, and after that an open-air concert gave them all the entertainment they needed.

“We certainly were not disappointed in Mayence,” said Gabriella as their steamer was pushing out upon the Rhine the next morning. “That was a good little hotel and they gave us excellent things to eat at a very moderate price. I hope we shall not be disappointed in the Rhine; so many persons are.”

“That is because they look for quantity rather than quality,” said Miss Cavendish. “They expect to see a river as broad as the Mississippi, and forget that it is beauty of scenery we are to look for. Between here and Bonn we may expect to find the finest part of the river.”

“It is a glorious day and the world is very beautiful,” sighed Gabriella, looking with increasing interest at the scene before her.

“I am going to get a little book of Rhine legends that I see over there,” said Sidney. “It will help us to enjoy all this storied Rhine.” The small book, purchased from an affable vendor of photographs, guide-books and such like wares, proved to be rather an amusing translation of the Rhine legends, but served the double purpose of adding to the party’s information as well as to their hilarity. “The poetry is the funniest I ever saw,” said Sidney, looking up from the printed page. “Evidently the whole translation has been laboriously made word by word from a dictionary. Listen to this:

“‘He twirled a small staff in the air
And unintelligibly talked—
Appearing a Being of precipice rare
As if from deep ravine he walked.’

Isn’t that perfectly delightful? Shouldn’t you love to see that kind of being, Gabriella?”

“Here, here,” called Miss Cavendish, “you are missing all the beautiful scenery while you are laughing over that nonsense. Leave that part for a rainy day when you are pining for something to do.”

“This is one occasion when I should like to be wall-eyed,” said Gabriella, “so I could look on both sides the river at once. While I am gazing at some enchanting bit on the left, I am missing something I ought to be looking at on the right.”

“‘The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,’”

quoted Miss Cavendish, as they neared Rolandseck. “Just here, girls, I think it is more beautiful than any point on the river that we have yet seen.”

“Oh, isn’t it satisfactory!” cried Gabriella.

“‘HERE, HERE,’ CALLED MISS CAVENDISH, ‘YOU ARE MISSING ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SCENERY.’”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” asserted Sidney. “Do try to remember more of Byron’s beautiful poem. What is that about ‘chiefless castles breaking stern farewells?’ I wish we had a copy of Byron. One ought to take a travelling library abroad; it is impossible to go around laden down with books, yet you want them at every turn. Are you feeling disappointed, Gem?”

“Not I. It meets my every expectation, and some day I mean to come to Rolandseck and stay for a week to read Byron.”

“Then you have settled on Rolandseck as your favorite spot along the river?”

“Yes, I think so, for it commands the Drachenfels, the Siebengebirge and the mountain of Rolandseck where poor lovelorn Roland built his castle. It seems to me that here the beauty of the river culminates, and some day I should like to come back to it when I could take time for an intimate acquaintance with the neighborhood. What scores of tales and legends swarm into one’s memory just here. It is here that one discovers the inspiration of Wagner’s operas, which can be understood how much better after seeing these renowned castles and famous cliffs.”

Beyond Bonn the scenery became tamer, and by the time they had reached Cologne they did not regret that they must leave the steamer. A glimpse only of the cathedral was all the evening light afforded them, but this was sufficient to cause them to speak in whispers as they issued from the splendid interior. “We can walk around and see the outside, anyhow,” said Sidney. “I want to take in every detail, for it is the most beautiful thing I ever imagined in the way of architecture. I am glad the windows of our room at the hotel give us a view of those magnificent towers. It has been a wonderful day, Gem; that lovely Rhine, and now this.”

“And we will end it with a garden concert,” said Miss Cavendish. “One can always be sure of good music in Germany, wherever one goes.”

But they did not dream that one of their most treasured memories would be connected with their evening in the Flora Gardens, to which they were directed by the urbane proprietor of their hotel. A good concert might be expected, they were told, and they would enjoy the gardens themselves. The long twilight made it possible for them to reach the place before dark, and it was nine o’clock before the darkness began to gather over the beautiful garden. The shadowy walks and lovely vistas so invited them that at the first intermission they left their places to wander down the paths beyond which were softly plashing fountains and blossoming plants.

They had sauntered quite away from the groups of persons who were lounging along the broader walks and had come to a quiet, lonely spot shaded by overhanging boughs of densest leafage. Suddenly from the midst of this bosky grove came a note of marvellous purity, then another, and presently such a song of marvellous sweetness fell upon their ears as held them spellbound.

“Is it a nightingale?” whispered Gabriella.

Miss Cavendish nodded an assent.

Sidney stood with eyes full of tears. Gabriella clasped her hands tensely and looked up into the deeply green branches where the songster had made his retreat. Not a word was said while the bird trilled out his notes of ecstasy. The concert which they had come to hear was forgotten. They stood in mute delight while the song burst forth from time to time. Silence, and then a repetition of the glorious song in all its fulness; it seemed as if the little creature’s heart must burst with the rapture of it, and to those who listened it was as if it came from no earthly being but that it was a voice from Paradise. At last it ceased, and the three, after listening in vain for a repetition, caught only a distant echo of the song and they walked quietly away.

“Let us go home,” said Sidney. “I don’t want to hear the rest of the concert. That nightingale’s song is enough for one evening.”

“It was the most exquisitely delicious thing I ever listened to,” Gabriella said. “Oh, Gem, who could have dreamed that we, who listened in vain for a nightingale in Italy, should have found one here? What a red-letter day it has been! That beautiful Rhine, that wonderful cathedral, that heavenly song! It has been almost too much; I feel as if I should like to creep off somewhere in this garden and weep.”

“That would be such a typically German thing to do,” laughed Miss Cavendish. “You haven’t said wunderschoen once, but your desire to shed tears in this garden would satisfy even Jean Paul who might address you something like this: ‘Thou sweet one! Thou of the tender heart and tearful eyes! that rapturous song has broken the fountain of thy youth with its melody and thy soul gushes forth in sparkling drops!’”

“Stop making fun of Jean Paul,” cried Gabriella. “You are ready to cry yourself, and are ashamed of it, and that is why you speak so lightly.”

“That is about the truth, Rella,” returned Miss Cavendish soberly. “It has been a day of sheer delight to me as well as to you, but I can’t afford to be too sentimental when I have two romantic maidens gazing at me with such languishing eyes.”

The cathedral by morning light was even more beautiful than at evening. The wonderful coloring of the stained glass against the greyish white of the stonework seemed then more effective.

“No wonder it has been so many years in building,” remarked Sidney. “The exact date of its commencement is 1248, I find, but for a long time no work was done upon it.”

“It is hardly possible to conceive of the magnificence of its proportions,” observed Miss Cavendish. “I cannot realize that it is four hundred feet long and that the towers are five hundred feet high.”

“I want to know the legend of St. Ursula and of the Theban legion,” Gabriella said.

“You surely haven’t forgotten the story of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. We looked that up in Italy.”

“So we did. Yes, I remember now.”

“The martyrs of the Theban legion were Christians who, with the rest of the Roman army, crossed the Alps. They were ordered by Maximilian to sacrifice to Jupiter, but this they refused to do, and the command was given for every tenth man to be slain. This order was repeated at every refusal of the remaining members of the legion to join in the sacrificial rite, till only a very few were left; these escaped and became hermits.”

“Speaking of legends,” remarked Gabriella, “I forgot to call your attention to the funniest bit of writing I have seen yet. It beats your Rhine legends, Sidney. It hangs in my room at the hotel where you can see it for yourselves and prove the truth of my copy. The lack of punctuation agrees with the original. It is one of the curiosities which I shall take home with me.” And she produced a paper which read: “To open and close the electrical on is requested to turn to the right hand when going to bed it must be closed otherwise the lightning must be paid.”

A chorus of laughter went up after the reading of this remarkable notice. “I’ve been wondering ever since where one finds the lightning which must be paid,” Gabriella informed the other two. “Do you suppose they keep it bottled up in a sort of office and make a fetish of it, and that one goes in and desposits a mark as a sacrificial offering, or something like that?”

“It is the loveliest bit of English we have yet discovered,” Sidney averred. “I must have a copy of it. Cologne has certainly afforded us plenty of laughter if her cathedral does silence us and if her nightingale does move us to tears.”

CHAPTER XI
THREE HUNDRED WINDMILLS

Two rooms high up in a modest little hotel just off the “Dam” were considered satisfactory quarters for the three travellers who arrived in Amsterdam late one evening in early June. “The rooms have the advantage of facing the street and of being off to themselves,” said Miss Cavendish, viewing them complacently, “and I am sure they are very cheap, though I have always heard that in Holland one must expect to pay high prices for everything. To be sure this doesn’t compare with what one gets in Italy for the same money, but it is much better than I expected. We get our breakfast at the hotel, our dinner in the restaurant below and our luncheon wherever we happen to be.”

“I like that arrangement,” responded Gabriella; “it gives a pleasing variety, and is quite different from any process of living that we have indulged in.” She was perched upon the broad window-sill in their room, looking down upon the street. Miss Cavendish was occupied in unpacking her small trunk, and Sidney, in the next room, was absorbed in her letters which she found awaiting her. “Do you know what I find rather remarkable?” continued Gabriella, after watching the passers-by for some minutes. “Here in Amsterdam the people remind me of Americans. In Italy one expects to see the Latin type prevailing; in Germany one has no difficulty in realizing that he is running up against the Teuton race; in Switzerland there is no mistaking the fact that you are in a foreign country, but if I were to fall asleep in New York and were to wake up in Amsterdam I should never know that I had crossed the seas unless I looked up at the houses, or happened to catch sight of a woman with gilt bed-springs over her ears, or a gold plate under her cap. So far as the actual physiognomy is concerned they might as well be my own townsmen.”

“That is rather interesting.” Miss Cavendish looked up from a small work-box she was emptying into her lap. “I can’t think what I did with those buttons. I’ll come and join you, Gabriella, and pursue this study of mankind, just as soon as I can find that big pearl button that belongs to my grey shirt-waist. Where could I have put it?”

“It’s in that little box where you keep your cuff-pins,” Gabriella told her. “I saw them there when I upset the box the other day. Hurry up, Gem, this is a fine place for observing the world of Amsterdam. To be sure we are rather high up in that world, and can only get a bird’s-eye view, but it is entertaining to look down on the people, and across at the long narrow houses with their gable ends toward the street; then there are the domes and cupolas and clock towers to see. Listen to those carillons. That’s the word, isn’t it? Aren’t they fascinating? That is one thing that impresses me over here: the wonderful chiming of the bells. Shall you ever forget how they sounded in Florence? They seem to ring out history every hour. Yes, this isn’t a bad location, though I am rather sorry we are not right on a canal; still this is very convenient. Where to-morrow, Gem?”

“To the Museum, I think, unless you would rather explore some of the little places near by; there are ever so many of them: Zaandam, Monnikendam, Volendam, Broek, Marken.”

“Let’s take Amsterdam first and sandwich the other places between, though I must say I am wild to see more of the windmills and dikes that we caught sight of as we came along.”

“I think then it would be rather a good plan to take the cloudy days for Amsterdam and the bright ones for the outside places, as this is not sunny Italy, and we may expect rain at any time.”

“We certainly don’t want to visit Marken in the rain,” remarked Sidney, coming in, “and yet we do want to see Amsterdam to the best advantage.”

“We’ll go to the Museum to-morrow, then, and trust to luck for the next day,” Miss Cavendish decided.

“We must have a good, clear and large map,” she announced, as they started forth the next morning. “The one in the guide book is rather small, and Amsterdam is not so simply laid out as some of the other cities. All these canals are bewildering.” The map was secured, and they triumphantly started off to find their way on foot to the Rijks Museum. It was a cool morning; a stiff breeze was blowing, reminding them of their proximity to the sea; over the sky flying clouds were scudding, though the sun was shining, and the city had that clean, newly washed look that seaside cities are likely to present. At the first corner Miss Cavendish opened her map in order to get her bearings. The map was larger than she had supposed, being not smaller than a newspaper’s double sheet, and it took the three to hold it down, for the fresh breeze flapped it in their faces, and threatened to carry it off bodily. As the three heads were bent studiously over the labyrinthine lines designed to show streets and canals, the attention of passers-by was arrested. Here were strangers in difficulty, and the kindly spirit of two or three was disturbed. One of them approached. “Did they speak Dutch?”

“No.” Each stranger shook her head.

Perhaps French. The speaker knew a little. Therefore in French they made known their dilemma. The shortest way to the Rijks Museum was what they wished to discover. The young man gave them careful directions. They were to follow the street, upon which they were, to a certain corner, then turn off till they came to the Park Hotel, and they would then have no trouble in finding the Museum.

They thanked their informant and started off again valiantly, feeling quite sure of their way, but they had gone only a short distance, the length perhaps of two or three blocks, when Miss Cavendish looked around with a puzzled expression. “I am afraid that we are off the track,” she said hesitatingly. “We seem to be going around in a circle. You know these streets and canals do follow a horse-shoe curve. I think we’d better look at the map again before we go further.” Therefore the map was again unfolded to the breeze and upon its flapping surface Miss Cavendish tried to outline their road.

They were still engaged in a discussion over it, and were anxiously looking up and down the street, when Sidney clutched Miss Cavendish. “Here he comes,” she cried.

“Who? Who?” asked both the others.

“The young man who showed us the way. Put up the map. Let him think we have stopped to tie our shoes or that we are interested in the architecture of this building—anything.”

A tumultuous effort was made to fold up the map, but in the strong wind it proved itself an obstreperous offender, and was only too plainly in evidence when the young man stepped smilingly up to them. There was no explanation to be made. Their flag of distress was obvious in the flapping map. It was only too apparent that they had again lost their way, and when the young Dutchman politely offered to pilot them they meekly accepted his escort.

“But we shall be taking you out of your way, and using your valuable time,” expostulated Miss Cavendish, as it became evident that he did not mean to lose sight of them till they had reached the very doors of the Museum.

“I am not too busy to do the honors of my city,” returned their guide. “Some day I may be in your New York and then I shall be very glad if one of your countrymen will show me the way.” And at the suggested compensation they had nothing to say except to declare that if it might fall to their lot, hereafter, to pilot any Dutchman through the mazes of New York streets, they would do it gratefully. With a few parting directions the young man left them at their destination, and they soon became absorbed in the treasures displayed.

“I had no idea that I should like the old Dutch masters so well,” said Gabriella, pausing before a fine Rembrandt. “I fancied an array of burgomasters and juffrouws, painted in a very low key, would not specially appeal to me, but they are wonderful. Look at those hands; they are so carefully studied and yet they are painted broadly.”

“You may notice that all these Dutch painters were careful of their drawing,” Miss Cavendish drew attention to the fact.

“I don’t care particularly for their subjects. This large gathering of worthy members of guilds isn’t so very interesting. I prefer the miles of saints in the Italian galleries.” Sidney signified the pictures with a comprehensive wave of the hand.

“I must confess I like the Dutchmen,” Gabriella maintained, “and I like Franz Hals particularly. Of course the ‘Night Watch’ is magnificent; no one can dispute that, but somehow it seems to me that Franz Hals combines the best qualities of the old school and the modern. There is nothing photographic about his work, and yet it doesn’t look like a crazy quilt, though it is broadly enough painted to suit an impressionist. If I had belonged to the honorable guild of cap-makers, or apron-wearers, I should have had Franz Hals paint my portrait when I was young, and when I became a dear old mutterkin in a cap I should have preferred Rembrandt; nobody ever painted old women as he did.”

The clouds which had overclouded the sky when they started forth in the morning, now fulfilled their promise of rain, and a steady downpour had set in; therefore they concluded to take luncheon in the restaurant attached to the Museum and to continue their examination of the many objects of interest at hand.

“This Museum is a nice, safe, dry place,” said Miss Cavendish, “and I think we may as well browse around here the rest of the day. There is some beautiful old furniture to see.”

“And that queer collection of Dutch national costumes on life-size figures; we must be sure not to miss that,” suggested Sidney.

“It was a day well spent,” Miss Cavendish uttered the words as they climbed the steep stairway to their rooms, “but oh, I am tired,” she added, “and I am thankful we have no further to go than downstairs for our dinner.”

“I wonder whether all the Dutchmen are as good-natured and polite as our little guide,” said Gabriella, gazing out of the window at the wet street. “He certainly did exhibit the kindliest interest in us. Imagine finding anyone in our rushing America who would take the time to do such a favor for a party of strangers. They are busy here, but they are deliberate in the matter of business, and the respite from rush is refreshing. I wonder if we shall have seven kinds of cheese for dinner, Gem?”

“Did you like the breakfast?”

“Yes; it was a change from the usual Continental breakfast. The coffee was the best I have tasted since I left home, and the butter was delicious, but from such an array of cold meats and cheese it was hard to choose, and I ended up by sampling so many kinds of cheese that I was rather unhappy for an hour afterward. I suppose it was too fresh for American digestion. I’ll abstain next time.”

“Amsterdam is rather fascinating, don’t you think?” questioned Sidney, joining Gabriella at the window. “It must be the canals that make it so, at least it is partly that. It is something like Venice in having so many waterways, though it is really not a bit like it, for here the streets provide a road on each side the canals and a waterway down the middle, while in Venice we rarely had even a sidewalk; it was all water.”

“That flower market that we saw this morning was beautiful,” observed Gabriella; “all those bright flowers in the canal boats reflected in the water, and the long shady street. It must be the trees, Sid, that make the difference; there are so many here, and in Venice scarcely any. For a summer day what pleasanter combination than cool looking grey and white houses, and shaded streets with a canal down the middle. Yes, I am quite in love with Amsterdam.”

The weather did not clear before noon the next day, and the contemplated trip to Marken was deferred, but Zaandam was discovered to be possible, and they complacently sallied forth, Sidney bearing her camera, and Gabriella insisting upon conveying a huge loaf of gingerbread. “You know Amsterdam is celebrated for its gingerbread,” she remarked, as she issued from the bake-shop with her package. “They wouldn’t cut this, and so I had to buy it all, but it was very cheap, and after looking at those three hundred windmills this afternoon, we shall probably need something fortifying. If we can’t eat it all to-day we can save the rest for to-morrow. This sharp sea air gives me an appetite.”

“So I have observed,” remarked Sidney.

Gabriella laughed and they started for the little steamer which was to take them to their destination. Sidney found abundant opportunity for using her camera as they proceeded upon their slow way. “Holland is so nice and flat,” she observed, “and the air is so clear that I am sure my Holland views will turn out well, whatever my Italian ones may do.”

“And we are not pestered to death with beggars here,” remarked Miss Cavendish, as they stepped ashore. But here they were beset by cabmen, who persistently followed them and used every persuasion to induce them to take a drive to see the three hundred windmills. Finding that their repeated refusals did no good, the ladies walked rapidly away, though one individual, more pertinacious than the rest, did not cease his importunity, but kept behind them at hailing distance.

“He actually is getting on my nerves,” said Gabriella at last. “If he didn’t speak English we could shut our ears and pretend he was talking about the weather. Let us cut through one of these little side places and see if we can’t get rid of him.” So they made a sudden turn and slipped out of sight to find themselves upon a picturesque street intersected by little canals. Smiling Dutch children played before the doors, cleanly housewives scoured and scrubbed their brass vessels in the schloats.

“This is ideal,” said Sidney focusing her camera upon a specially pleasing group. But she had not time to take a snap-shot before Gabriella cried, “There he comes!” and she looked to see the form of their tormentor bearing down upon them. Gabriella fairly took to her heels, leaving the others to add another dignified refusal to those already given.

They found Gabriella laughing behind the palings of a fence which enclosed a small garden where she had taken refuge. “Did you get rid of him?” she inquired, “or is the avenger still upon our track? I really didn’t feel that I could face him again. Isn’t this an interesting place? Such pretty gardens and such clean houses. Somewhere about here is the cottage where Peter the Great lived when he was learning ship-building; I caught sight of it as I came along. That nice, rosy-cheeked, fat little boy, in the wooden shoes, will tell us where it is. When we have seen it we will try to escape through another street so we shall not have to pass the tormenter again. I know he is lying in wait for us.”

Miss Cavendish laughed. “Gabriella has really a panic. I think it is rather funny myself. I don’t in the least mind saying no whenever it is necessary.”

“Ah, but you have had chances to say no so much oftener than I,” complained Gabriella. The rosy-cheeked child who stood staring at them could not withstand the smile which she gave him and, after accepting a large piece of the gingerbread, he pointed the way to the cottage of Peter the Great.

A circuitous route took them to the other end of the quiet clean town where scrubbing and scouring were going on incessantly, outside the small houses. Windmills flung around their arms in every direction; in the lush green meadows beyond the town neat black and white cows were quietly grazing; groups of blue-aproned, tow-headed children frolicked unrestrained in the streets. Everyone appeared serenely content.

“It is just as placidly Dutch as I believed it would be,” began Gabriella. “Now, if we can get back to the boat without being importuned to take a drive—”

“Ladies, you will just have time for a ride around the town to see the three hundred windmills before your boat goes,” said a voice at her elbow. She gave a little surprised scream and dashed on, leaving Miss Cavendish so full of laughter that she could scarcely rebuff the persistent man who cheerfully travelled along within a few feet of her to the very door of the waiting-room.

“If only he wouldn’t speak English,” groaned Gabriella, “and if he wouldn’t have that way with him as if he fully meant to keep up his arguments until we actually had to give in, I wouldn’t care. When he startled me by that last appearance every hair on my head began to rise. What did you say, Sidney?”

“I said that this is the wrong landing. We came down on that steamer that is waiting on the other side. Evidently the first-class steamers come in at one wharf and the second-class at the other.”

“Oh, then if this is second-class let us go from here. I don’t mind, do you? Anything rather than cross that bridge again.”

“But our tickets aren’t for this line,” explained Miss Cavendish.

“Oh!” Gabriella meekly gave in and they essayed to return. But just as they reached the end of the bridge there stood their man. He pointed in triumph to the steamer now slowly leaving her dock. “You’ll not get your steamer, ladies,” he said. “There will not be another leaving for an hour, and you’ll just have time for a—” Gabriella stopped her ears and ran on wildly, not stopping till she was safe at the pier.

“I really couldn’t hear him mention those three hundred windmills again,” she declared. “We are safe now, for no one can come inside the gates without a ticket and we shall have a lovely time taking photographs and eating our gingerbread.” But the delectable food disproved its appearance, for it was by no means as good as it looked. “And I thought it was going to be delicious,” said Gabriella, looking ruefully at the large supply she had bought. “We can’t eat it; I can’t bear to throw it away, and I don’t believe there are any poor people in Holland; I haven’t seen any who couldn’t make better gingerbread than this. I wish I had tasted it at once and then I could have given it to the goat we saw at the other end of the town. Nothing but a goat could make way with this.”

“Leave it on the bench when we go,” suggested Sidney, “and then you will not know what becomes of it.”

“That is a good idea,” returned Gabriella. But she was not permitted to follow out her plan, for upon stepping upon the gangplank a workman perceived the package, rushed back and politely handed it to her. She gave him a weak “Thank you,” and cast upon her friends such a look as made them laugh every time they recalled it. “Perhaps they don’t have gingerbread at Marken,” Gabriella had a sudden inspiration. “I will take it down there to-morrow and give it to some youngster.” Even this privilege was denied her, for she forgot it in the hurry of getting off, and the final disposition of the gingerbread was never settled, for they left it upon the table when at last they took their departure from their rooms.

“Marken was rather disappointing,” Miss Cavendish gave her opinion as they set out upon their return from this far-famed island the next day. “It is so evidently a show place nowadays. The people pose for effect, and even the rapturous woman who threw her arms around us when we told her we were Americans, was simply a good actress.”

“But the littlest of the boys and girls do still dress exactly alike,” asserted Gabriella, who did not wish her illusions to vanish, “and they do have a queer costume.”

“And their cottages are most interesting, I am sure,” Sidney agreed with Gabriella. “And the little caps I bought are genuine. I did want to get those so I could show them to grandfather. I shall have to label them at once before I forget whether it is the round patch on the back or the square one which is for the boys.”

“It is a desolate place, that island,” Miss Cavendish went on. “I shouldn’t like to live there in winter.”

“But Monnikendam is dear,” said Sidney. “I simply love that sleepy old place.”

“And Broek is exactly like Spotless Town,” continued Gabriella.

“We must go to Alkmaar on market day,” decided Miss Cavendish. “I fancy there we shall see more costumes, and get an idea of the people more satisfactorily than by taking these special excursions, which I am sure the fisher folk prepare for. I suppose if we were to seek out the unfrequented villages there would still be much in Holland which would appeal to us.”

“I think we have been able to get an excellent idea of Holland in the little while we have been here,” Sidney assured her.

“We might stay another day, perhaps, if you have seen enough of schloats and windmills and all that. We can take in The Hague on our way to Antwerp.”

This was agreed upon and then, with a distinct recollection of the quality of the gingerbread in a certain bake-shop and of the fact that there were three hundred windmills in Zaandam, they sought their beds.

CHAPTER XII
A TEMPEST IN AN INK-BOTTLE

“I had no idea we should find Antwerp so interesting,” said Sidney a few days later. “Holland I expected to be all that it proved; a fascinating place where one would like to spend an entire summer.”

“And where they charge more for laundry work than any place within my experience,” replied Miss Cavendish, looking up from her accounts; “though as for the rest of our expenses, they fell far below what I was given to suppose. Our week here has cost us about thirteen dollars apiece; that includes our little side trips and our tickets to Antwerp.”

“It doesn’t seem possible that it could be done so cheaply,” returned Sidney, who never could understand how Miss Cavendish managed to keep their expenses within the limit she had set for them.

“If it were anyone else but our clever Gem who was our personal conductor,” said Gabriella, “it could not be done. It is because we have her and because we don’t go to the caravansaries.”

“And because we buy such cheap gingerbread,” added Sidney, slyly.

“Oh, now—” Gabriella began.

“There is a little suggestion of French life here,” Miss Cavendish went on, not heeding these side remarks. “It isn’t quite as sedate as Amsterdam. I agree with you, Sidney, that there is much to attract one.”

“Including this excellent pension with its pretty little garden.”

“And its funny milk-carts with those dear, good, hard-working dogs to draw them,” continued Gabriella.

“It is really a very important city, historically, commercially and artistically,” Miss Cavendish went on. “We shall find plenty of Rubens’ pictures here, his masterpieces, too. The cathedral is specially rich in paintings, and there is a remarkable carved pulpit there which we must not forget to see. St. Jacques is also a splendid church; the stained glass there is remarkably good. You see I have informed myself upon the sights of the city.”

“What shall we find at the Academy?” asked Gabriella.

“Rubens, and still more Rubens, with a number of other examples of good work.”

“Then I foresee that we shall spend several days here very satisfactorily,” Sidney predicted.

Time proved the truth of this, for it was the end of the week before they were ready to leave Antwerp’s interesting streets, where quaint old shops crowding splendid churches lured them to purchase precious laces, rare old silver, and fascinating antiques of all kinds.

“‘IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT CITY, HISTORICALLY, COMMERCIALLY AND ARTISTICALLY.’”

“I shall not have a penny left for Paris if I keep on,” sighed Gabriella, “and there is Brussels yet to be considered.”

“But you may not want to spend anything there,” Sidney comforted her by saying. “I am told that one gets better laces here for the money, and that it is all a delusion that Paris prices do not obtain in Brussels. It may have been so at one time, but unless you know just where to go you can do better in Paris.”

“There are a dozen places it would be worth while to visit,” remarked Miss Cavendish, when they were on their way to Brussels, “but as long as we are simply skimming the cream very lightly, we shall have to leave them out. There are Treves and Bruges, for example, I should like much to see them. Treves is probably the oldest city this side the Alps, and claims to be older than Rome. Its history is exceedingly interesting. Bruges is a fine old city, too, full of things we would like to see.”

“Some day in my Methuselah incarnation,” announced Gabriella, “I shall come to Europe and visit all the small, no ’count towns. I think we could find a great many curious things in some of the places which nobody ever hears of, and which the guide-books pass over. Antwerp is not lacking in pleasant things to hear about. I like the story of Quentin Matsys, who gave up his trade of blacksmith in order to become an artist and marry an artist’s daughter. One never knows what hidden treasures may lie under ‘hodden grey.’ That blue blouse yonder may cover the heart of a poet.”

“I liked that about the five hundred New Testaments, and all that about Tyndale, who sold his whole edition to the Bishop of London and paid his debts, and then when the bishop had burned the books Tyndale promptly brought out a more perfect edition. I always like to hear of those wily old political tyrants being outwitted. What story did you like best, Gem?”

“I think the legend of St. Genoveva of Treves is delightful, though that takes us some distance from Antwerp. You remember that she was banished to the woods by the intrigues of Golo, Siegfried’s steward, and there her little boy was born, whom she named Sorrowful. His woodland nurse was a gentle hind. After seven years Siegfried and his friends were out hunting, and pursued the hind, whom they started up from her covert. When at last they came up to it they found a lovely boy standing closely clasping the creature’s neck. Then a fair woman appeared, whom Siegfried recognized as his beloved and wronged wife. She was able to vindicate herself from the charges of unfaithfulness which Golo had caused to be made against her and was restored to her husband. After her death she was canonized.”

“That is a pretty tale,” agreed Sidney.

“Brussels is so modern that we shall have to go on a pilgrimage in order to find its ancient streets, I fancy.” Gabriella expressed this opinion as they bowled along the wide boulevards of the city.

“We shall not have to go far,” Miss Cavendish told her, “for the Grand Place where the Hotel de Ville stands is the very centre of historical interest.”

“We’ll go there first thing, then, shall we? What do you most care to see, Gabriella?”

“Her beauty and her chivalry. There is some of the beauty, in that carriage. And oh, what a fine building. What is it?” She put her query to the driver.

“Le Palais de Justice,” he told her.

“We must not fail to go there. I begin to observe that Brussels, like most of the other spots we have visited, is worth while.” And it was several days before the sights of the upper and lower town had been viewed, even hastily. The cathedral with its magnificent stained glass; the Palais de la Nation; the Hotel de Ville, where they happened to be in time to witness a grand wedding; the Bois de la Cambre, where they sat and listened to the band play while they observed fashion in carriages and the rest of the world on foot; these were but a few of the things that occupied their attention.

Miss Cavendish, as usual, was fascinated by the laces, and, having discovered a little shop where moderate prices prevailed, she was beguiled into adding to her purchases an extremely beautiful bertha.

“Um! Um!” exclaimed Gabriella, when it was displayed to her envious eyes, “I’d like to be the fellow to wear that.”

“Perhaps you will be,” returned her godmother.

“Why, Isabella Cavendish, what do you mean? Explain yourself, if you please.”

“I mean that I am buying this for a wedding present. It shall be for the first one of the party who requires it for a wedding gown.”

“Lovely!” exclaimed Gabriella. “I’ll try my best to be the one who earns it.”

“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to set a premium on marrying; that wasn’t my idea at all. I only thought of its being a suggestive gift for one of you girls when the time came, because of the association. Lace will keep, you know, and I am in no hurry to get rid of it, I assure you.”

Gabriella looked at the delicate point with longing eyes. “I don’t intend to let you have it, Sid,” she declared, “for you can afford to buy slathers of lace for your wedding gown, while I shall never have another chance like this.”

Sidney laughed. “How terribly in earnest the child is,” she said. “I’ll tell you what we can do, Rella, we’ll make the compact that it is to be worn by each of us. Whoever has it first will lend it to the others as the occasion requires.”

“Others?” exclaimed Miss Cavendish. “Please leave me out of the question.”

“Indeed we will not,” Sidney spoke with decision. “I prophesy that you will be the very first to require it.”

“It is a lovely scheme,” Gabriella agreed, “and as I intend to marry nothing less than an American multi-millionaire or a wealthy Birmingham manufacturer with a bran-new title, it will be I who shall need it first.”

“We’ll not quarrel over it,” said Miss Cavendish, laughing as she returned the lace to its wrappings. “This is positively my last purchase of lace for this trip. Please bear me witness, girls.”

Although Brussels’ attractions continued to occupy their time, the prospect of Paris absorbed their thoughts and they suddenly decided to set their faces toward the “American heaven.”

“I have sensations, distinct sensations,” Gabriella announced. “My hands are cold and there are creepy feelings running up and down my spine. In five minutes we shall be in Paris, with the Latin quarter contiguous, so to speak, and the Louvre within comfortable distance.”

“I hope your creepy feelings don’t mean that you have taken cold,” remarked Miss Cavendish, practically.

“Oh, dear, no; they are purely mental effects. There, we have stopped. Do you dare get out, Gem, and project yourself into the hands of a Parisian cab-driver? I am scared to death of them and don’t dare to lift my eyelids till we get fairly started out of the station. Have we everything? Oh!” This last exclamation was due to the fact that Miss Cavendish was interviewing a respectable-looking interpreter, who agreed for the sum of one franc to put their luggage through the customs, get them a cab and see them safely started for the proper address.

“It is worth double the amount to be freed from responsibility,” acknowledged Miss Cavendish, who, on this occasion, was a little nervous. “I have something the feeling that Daniel must have had when he entered the lions’ den. I wonder if we shall ever have the courage to venture into the streets of Paris alone.”

“We have done it everywhere else,” Gabriella rejoined, “and we have never been gobbled up.”

“I suppose it is exceedingly silly and provincial to feel as if Paris were more dangerous than any other city, and no doubt I shall recover my equilibrium as soon as I get my bearings,” Miss Cavendish assured her charges. “Don’t lose faith in me, girls, because I employed an interpreter.”

“It would take more than a dozen interpreters to make us lose faith in you,” they insisted, loyally.

“It is beautiful. It isn’t in the least disappointing,” Gabriella exclaimed suddenly. “We are coming to the fine part of the city. This must be the Champs Élysées. There is the Arc d’Étoile, isn’t it? Are we to be near that, then?”

“I think so,” returned Miss Cavendish, a little uncertainly. “Yes, this is our street,” as they turned off the great thoroughfare.

“Good! Then we shall see the driving and the crowds and all that.”

“But you must remember that the gay season is over and what we shall see of Paris will not be the fashion and the show of spring and autumn.”

“We shall see enough, no doubt,” returned Gabriella, nothing discouraged.

Madame, their landlady, was a typical Frenchwoman, who greeted them in voluble French and assigned them their rooms with a business-like air. The rooms were not large, but were comfortable and looked out upon a long green court. “This is better than I could have believed,” asserted Miss Cavendish. “I rather inclined toward the Luxembourg quarter till Miss Bailey advised me to come here, for, as she said, the air is better and it will be cooler in case we have hot weather. I suppose we should perhaps see more of the life of the streets on the other side of the city, but, upon the whole, I am inclined to think that we have chosen wisely.”

“At least,” said Sidney, “we have not five or six long flights to climb, for this is only the second floor from the street.”

Gabriella was reading a note which the maid had just brought her. “The Baileys have arrived,” she remarked.

“How did you find that out?” Sidney asked in surprise.

“From this note,” returned Gabriella.

“Miss Bailey is writing to you? What for?”

“I didn’t say the note was from Miss Bailey,” replied Gabriella, blushing furiously.

“Gabriella, Gabriella, remember the multi-millionaire, or the Birmingham manufacturer,” warned Sidney. But Gabriella only laughed and thrust the note inside her blouse.

Sidney looked at her suspiciously. “You let that Briton know when and where we were coming,” she said.

“Well, not exactly as you put it,” Gabriella made reply. “He wrote to ask,—that was when we were in Antwerp,—and I answered when it was decided that we should be here the first of this week, and I furthermore told him that we were coming to a house recommended by Miss Bailey. I didn’t suppose I should find a note here, though it was natural enough, as he is not three squares away.”

“For pity’s sake,” exclaimed Miss Cavendish. “Is this to be a repetition of Florence, Gabriella? What is the object of his writing to you?”

“He wants us all to go to the Salon with him. It will be open only a few days longer, and he wanted me to know that. I am sure it is very decent of him.”

“So it is,” returned Miss Cavendish, somewhat mollified, “but I do hope, Gabriella, that you will not lead that young man a dance.”

“Oh, bless you, no. We are on very good terms with England, so there is no reason why I should try to revenge myself for any of the offences of his forefathers. I don’t bear any grudge because of taxation without representation.”

“But you simply cannot help flirting.”

“Oh yes, I can; I have helped it on occasions.”

“Then let this be one of the occasions.”

Gabriella looked up at her with a little inscrutable smile and set to work to arrange her belongings. During this process she placed a travelling ink-bottle upon the table which stood directly in front of the window and upon a level with the sill. In reaching for something upon the other side of the table the bottle was overturned, and before anyone could rescue it, over it fell, rolled out, and dropped with a crash into the court below, breaking into fragments. The effect was electrifying. In an instant there was excited voices raised above and below stairs; heads were thrust from the windows; the concierge, with angry gesticulations, consulted his wife; even a gendarme appeared to add to the general excitement.

“Did they think it was dynamite, or what?” questioned Gabriella in dismay.

At this instant there was a peremptory knock at the door. A maid, with flustered manner and red face, appeared. Madame wished to know the occasion of the disaster. How did it happen?

Each with the best French that she could summon tried to explain. It was an accident; the bottle had rolled out, they tried to tell her. Had anyone been hurt? Was any damage done?

“No, they were assured, but—” Here came a long speech spoken in such rapid utterance that they could not exactly follow, nor could they gather why the matter should so stir up the whole household. The maid was evidently not satisfied, for she took herself off still talking.

Presently another appeared. This one was English. Madame wished to know where the bottle was standing when the accident occurred. Had it been placed upon the window-sill?

“No, no,” returned Miss Cavendish, “it was upon the table. As you can see, it is very easy for anything to roll out.”

“Ah-h!” A smile of satisfaction overspread Betty’s face. Then it was all right. Perhaps the ladies did not know that it was against the law to place anything upon the window-sill, in case of danger to the passers-by. She would explain.

She withdrew and the report was taken to those below, the gesticulating and red-faced concierge subsided; the interested bystanders who had congregated slouched back into the street; the heads disappeared from the windows, and all was serene again.

“Did you ever know such a tempest in an ink-bottle?” exclaimed Sidney. “One would suppose that we had at least made an attempt to blow up the Louvre, or had tried to assassinate the president, and all because an ink-bottle fell out of the window.”

“Yes, but isn’t it French to get so excited over it?” laughed Miss Cavendish. “As soon as they discovered that we had not flagrantly broken a law, the circumstance ceased to interest them.”

“All the same, with their ‘liberté, fraternité and égalité,’ there will be no one brotherly enough to give me a new ink-bottle,” complained Gabriella. “I don’t suppose I can ever get such a nice, complete American contrivance as it was. All the time they were fussing over the matter I was feeling aggrieved at my loss.”

“But it really might have injured some one if it had fallen upon a French head,” said Sidney.

“It wouldn’t have been my fault,” returned Gabriella, still aggrieved, “though I suppose I would have had the blame fixed upon me after the manner of the French, who do not give foot-passengers the right of way, but, when these are run down by an impudent cabby, make them pay a fine for getting in the way, even if they are broken to bits.”

“Do you mean in pocket?” asked Sidney.

“That from you, Sidney Shaw! I didn’t expect it. Wait till you get out into the streets and are in a hurly burly of automobiles, cabs and omnibuses, and while you are trying to get out of the way a vile cab-driver deliberately makes for you, then you’ll not make sickly puns.”

In response to this lecture, Sidney acknowledged that she had been sinfully flippant. “That is why,” Gabriella went on, “I answered Taffy’s note. I knew we should feel the need of a protector in this wicked city. I think it would be well if you and Gem were each to look out for one, for I am not sure that one will go around.”

“After which crafty remark I think you would better get ready for dinner,” suggested Miss Cavendish. “Speak for yourself and Sidney; I can get along by myself.”

“And I made the sacrifice of meeting that Briton again simply on your account,” returned Gabriella.

“You outrageous falsifier!” exclaimed Miss Cavendish.

Gabriella laughed, but it was noticed that she dressed with unusual care that evening.

CHAPTER XIII
“HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN A RUSSIAN”

There was no lack of cheerful and even entertaining chatter at Madame Morelle’s table. Her house was a popular one, for it offered many attractions to the sojourner in Paris; the rooms were clean, the table, if not lavishly spread, was adequate, though the usual French economies were apparent, and the prices were very moderate. Madame, herself, was thoroughly French, quick, excitable, ready to take offence at slight provocation, but kind-hearted and an excellent manager. That quiet which is a distinguishing mark of gentility did not pervade her establishment. If Madame shut a door she slammed it; if she gave an order it was heard up and down stairs; if she chided it was with such violence that the trembling maids cringed before her and hastened away at the first chance of escape; yet they adored her and imitated her in a small way, though Nanette’s voice was silver sweet, and the smiling little Normandy peasant, Marie, could not have scared a kitten. Madame was a dressy person of large presence, who sailed around her premises in elaborate matinées before the déjeuner and appeared in elegant costumes at dinner, her loud-voiced volubility announcing her arrival wherever she went.

At table Gabriella found herself placed by the side of a young Russian, while Sidney’s next neighbor was a Dutchman who wore a large seal ring upon his forefinger. Miss Cavendish sat between the two girls and had for her vis-à-vis the elder Miss Bailey, whose chair crowded that of a little angular American school-marm who spoke French with such a decided Yankee accent that Gabriella dared not look at her friends after first hearing her speak. A bluff old Yorkshireman with a deep rolling voice and hearty manner came next, and beyond these the company presented the same variety of nationalities ending at the head of the long table with Madame Morelle herself, who kept up a lively conversation accompanied by many expressive little shrieks, rollings of eyes and shrugs of shoulders.

After dinner it was the custom of the boarders to repair to the pretty little salon which Madame assured her newly arrived guests was at the disposal of those who wished to occupy it. The young Dutchman followed Sidney to a quiet corner to continue the conversation favorably begun at the table. Miss Bailey drew Gabriella to her side, while Miss Mildred engaged Miss Cavendish’s attention. The entrance of Owen Morgan put an end to all this, for he insisted upon taking all his friends out for a ride on top of an omnibus to see the boulevards by night. He had greeted them all as if they were old friends, though Gabriella stiffened ever so slightly at his appropriation of herself as a matter of course. Miss Bailey declared that she did not know that Mildred ought to go, but that young creature with a petulant air pouted and bridled until her sister gave in, though insisting that she would prefer to stay at home. She made it known that she did not like to climb to the top of an omnibus, and that she did not care to stay below by herself. It seemed a matter difficult to adjust until the young Dutchman threw himself into the breach and offered to sit below if Sidney would bear him company, and thus it was arranged.

“You are a dear,” said Gabriella to Sidney as they went to get their hats. “You will miss the best of it by not being above, but I will change with you coming back. How does the Dutchman happen to go with us?”

“Mr. Morgan invited him, for it seems that Miss Bailey knows something about him.”

“What is his name, anyhow, and where did he get his ring? Is he a burgomaster or something? He looks exactly like some of those portraits in the Museum at Amsterdam. I suppose his name is van Stecklenhorst or Sniffelberger.”

“It is van Schepel.”

“That’s not quite so bad. I knew it had to be a van something on account of that monster ring. Can he speak intelligible English?”

“Oh, yes, he can do fairly well, and, like most foreigners, he is eager to improve his opportunities. I think that is why he has fastened upon us; we are but agents in the matter of his education.”

“Oh!” Gabriella looked incredulous, but Sidney evidently considered that she had discovered the facts in the case.

It was a warm night and the boulevards were thronged. Every little table on the sidewalks appeared to be occupied. At the brilliantly lighted cafés crowds were gathered; carriages dashed up and down, automobiles shot ahead of the rumbling ’buses.

“Isn’t it gay?” Gabriella turned to speak to her companion. “Why, where is Miss Cavendish?” she asked in surprise.

“There were not seats enough above,” Mr. Morgan told her, “and you know you ran up ahead of us all, so I am deputed to look after you.”

“Dear me, I thought the man said ‘quatre places.’”

“So he did, but some others held tickets.”

“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to oust Gem out of a place; I supposed she was directly behind me. Can’t we make room for just one more? There, some one is getting off?”

“If you prefer,” returned Mr. Morgan a little stiffly, “I will go and notify Miss Cavendish, though I may lose my place meanwhile, and you would be left up here unprotected.”

“I don’t know that I should mind that,” answered Gabriella perversely.

“But this is Paris. Would you elect to travel around New York or Washington by yourself alone at night?”

“Oh, dear, yes,” returned the girl flippantly. “It is my common custom.” And to her delight Mr. Morgan looked shocked. “You know American girls always do as they please,” she went on. “Of course we carry pistols whenever we go out, for if we stay out after midnight we might be held up by a highwayman; they are so frequently met with, you know. I remember once when a pair of banditti demanded my money or my life I had forgotten to load my pistol before I started out, and I simply scared them off by a bluff.”

“Gabriella, what are you talking about?” came a voice from the other side of the bench. “Mr. Morgan, she is simply fooling you,” said Miss Cavendish, who had taken the one place unobserved by the other two.

“Why, Gem, how did you get up here?” exclaimed Gabriella.

“I noticed that some one had made room for me, and so I came up to join you. What cock-and-bull story was she telling you, Mr. Morgan? Has she been trying to make you believe that American girls go around at night at will without proper escort?”

“Something like that,” he admitted.

“But why try to produce that impression, Gabriella?” Miss Cavendish inquired.

“Oh, because Englishmen are so dense and it is so easy to fool them into thinking extreme things about us,” returned Gabriella, laughing.

“Am I dense?” asked Mr. Morgan.

“Sometimes,” Gabriella did not hesitate to say. “If an English girl had told one of our men such a tale as that he would have matched it with something a little stronger instead of half believing it.”

“Ah, but you see an English girl would never have dreamed of doing such a thing,” replied Mr. Morgan, as if that settled it.

“I believe you,” returned Gabriella fervently. And here they reached the café toward which they were bound.

“Isn’t it fun?” Gabriella was nothing if not appreciative. “I am so glad to see Paris by night. It is what I longed to do. I think I shall like to spend half my time on top of the omnibuses.”

They seated themselves at tables before a small café, where ices were served them, and where a strange drink termed “limonade gazeuse” took the place of an American lemonade or an English “lemon squash.” At their leisure they watched the passing crowds, which seemed only to increase as the hour grew later. “It is splendid,” said Gabriella as they made ready to go, “but—”

“But what?” Mr. Morgan asked.

“It isn’t Italy.”

“That is what Gabriella always says,” Sidney remarked. “As if we expected it would be Italy. She is Italy daft and nothing less than a villa at Sorrento and an orange grove will ever satisfy her.”

“I am thinking of buying one,” said Gabriella nonchalantly. “Mamma would like the life, I am sure. I need only give up a few things, you know; a few utterly unnecessary things like more diamonds and a new automobile, and my yacht. I should like to try one of those row-boats where the men stand up and row; they look so picturesque, and I have no doubt I can get a villa quite cheaply.”

Miss Cavendish bit her lip and shook her head at the girl, who at this silent admonition only chattered on.

“I think I must get Signor Rondinelli to look out for a bargain for me.”

Mr. Morgan glanced at the young Dutchman, who was listening interestedly, and then he looked gravely at Gabriella, who answered with an innocent smile. “No,” she said, addressing him, “I shall never be quite happy to live anywhere but in Italy. I wonder I have been so long finding it out.”

“It must be time to go,” said Miss Bailey, who had been only half listening to this talk. “We shall be locked out and shall have to ring up the concierge, and he is so cross.”

“His wife is worse,” returned Sidney; “I always rush past her so that I may avoid her black looks. I think she knows we are the ones who allowed the ink-bottle to roll out the window.”

“She lacks a sense of humor,” said Gabriella, as she and Mr. Morgan led the way up the bright boulevard.

“I believe you Americans charge us with a lack of humor,” Mr. Morgan ventured to say.

“I don’t think I am capable of judging, having never been in England. You are the first Englishman I have ever known.”

“And my sense of humor is weak?”

“How shall I test it? Let me see, you have rather a pretty wit at times, as they used to say. Do you enjoy Alice in Wonderland?”

“I certainly do.”

“Then you stand outside the ban. I simply adore Alice.”

“I am delighted that you agree with me on that one point.”

“Don’t I always agree with you?”

“Seldom. Except at San Miniato I can recall but few instances.”

“And I suppose in your lordly Briton way you like girls to agree with you; to be very sweet and say ‘Quite so,’ or, ‘Fancy,’ or ‘Ow,’ and allow you to do most of the talking. Have you the English opinion which insists that Americans talk too much?”

Mr. Morgan considered the question with gravity. “I think some of them talk more than is necessary,” he answered guardedly. “At times I have met those who would be more charming if they added a little repose to their manner.”

“And a little more softness to their quality of voice.”

“Quite so.”

“And no doubt you like a floppy, flowing style of dress.” Gabriella began to wax indignant.

“No, I like the way American girls dress. I can always tell them from English girls.”

“How do you distinguish us, pray?”

“By your belts,” said Mr. Morgan, confidentially. “American girls always wear their belts so they go up in the back and down in front, and English girls wear theirs in just the opposite way.”

Gabriella laughed gleefully.

“And you have a way of putting on your veils which no other girls can imitate,” continued Mr. Morgan, “and you wear less jewelry, trinkets and chains and things, you know.”

“I have noticed that,” returned Gabriella, “though I don’t think that can be said of all Americans; some women are overloaded even when they are not in the drawing-room.”

“But surely jewels are very feminine. You wouldn’t have women discard them, would you?”

“No, but I would have them wear such ornaments only upon appropriate occasions.”

“Ow!” Mr. Morgan was pondering over this as Gabriella fell back that she might join Miss Cavendish.

“We are discussing the differences between the English and the Americans,” Gabriella informed her friend.

“But why discuss?” rejoined Miss Cavendish. “We don’t pretend to be alike. Why should we be? It is the very distinctive difference which makes the charm. One doesn’t want England to be America, else one might as well stay at home. I have no patience with Anglomaniacs. We can love and admire the English without slavishly aping them. Why should an American persist in calling stables ‘mews,’ and roofs ‘leads,’ when it is not the custom to do so in her own country? It is deadly affected, and those who try to out-English the English seem to me to be either ashamed of their own country or to desire to make themselves laughing-stocks.”

“I quite agree with you,” returned Mr. Morgan. “Americans are unaffectedly breezy and are charming enough for anyone. Why they should ever wish to be neither one thing nor the other I fail to see. When one lives in a country it is sometimes advisable to adopt certain expressions, but these need not be extreme ones, and such adoptions are usually of slow growth.”

“Then I may keep my American vocabulary, may I?” said Gabriella laughing.

“Pray do, if you want to preserve your individuality,” Mr. Morgan returned.

“Oh, I’ve not the faintest ambition to be English,” returned the girl with a little toss of her head.

“What did make you so contrary to-night?” Miss Cavendish asked her when they had reached their room.

“Was I contrary? I don’t know that I was.”

“You certainly tried to give Mr. Morgan a wrong impression of yourself.”

“He is such an excellent subject for my imagination to work upon, and you know I told you I meant to pretend that I was the heiress.”

“Do you want him to think that?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“I didn’t know,” returned Miss Cavendish feebly. “He seems such an honest, single-hearted young man; it seems rather a shame to jolly him.”

“It wasn’t all on his account. There was the Dutchman, you know. I am seized with a wild yearning for that monster ring. I would wrap a cord around it and wear it on my thumb, if I had it. I think I must ask Sidney to change places with me at table so I can feast my eyes on that marvel. Wouldn’t it be lovely to get him to teach me Dutch and have him point out the words with his forefinger?”

“Gabriella, you are the silliest child I know. I don’t wonder the girls at school used to call you Gaby. Would you entice that poor unsuspecting young Dutchman into your toils?”

“For the sake of the ring I shall have to do it, if I can. I did have designs upon that barbarous, wide-mouthed Russian who sits next me, but unhappily I asked him if he drank Japanese tea and he hasn’t spoken to me since. I may try to reinstate myself in his good graces; it would be rather fun to have a barbarous Russian in love with you, rather exciting and full of action such an experience would be, I fancy. If you are so impressed with the virtues of Owen Glendower, you may take him off my hands at the Salon to-morrow, and I’ll talk to the Dutchman, for he is going, too.”

“I though you had selected the simple Taffy as a soubriquet for your Welsh friend.”

“So I had, until I was suddenly reminded that I was filching from Du Maurier’s ‘Trilby,’ and as our friend already had the Owen it was easy to add the Glendower.”

The expedition to the Salon was successfully undertaken so far as all were concerned except Owen Morgan, for spying her neighbor at table, catalogue in hand, Gabriella had no difficulty in attaching him to her side, leaving Mr. Morgan to Miss Cavendish’s good graces, while Mr. van Schepel followed in Sidney’s train. “It was my mission to explain the pictures to that young man,” Gabriella told Miss Cavendish when taken to task for her disaffection. “He doesn’t know very much about art and I thought it was the part of a Christian to try to broaden his knowledge of things artistic. You didn’t mind, did you, Gem?”

“No, but Mr. Morgan did. He made the engagement with you and it was not courteous to desert him.”

“But he invited us all, and he had you, what more did he want?”

“He evidently wanted more, or less, since you are not so big as I.”

“Well, never mind; I’ll make it all right with him. Let’s talk about the Russian; he is quite a new type. He is the son of a count who has estates in the Ural mountains. Isn’t that interesting? I wonder how it would seem to live there. Do you suppose he has a castle and would give his daughter-in-law all the sables she could wear? I thought his name must be queer and it is: Rowtowsky. What became of Sidney and the Dutchman?”

“Gabriella, you fly from one subject to another like a—”

“Humming-bird, yes, I have been told that. I want to tell Sidney that I’d rather not change places with her. The Russian is to the fore, now. He is going to give us tea to-night, and show us how they drink it in Russia. I made him entirely forget what I said about Japanese tea. He is so very homesick, poor fellow, and says he misses his home customs. They always drink tea about ten o’clock at night and have a cosy time over it. I believe he said they put preserves in it.”

“Nonsense, Gabriella.”

“I am sure he did. You will see to-night.”

Her prediction proved true, for the Russian, who had brought out his own packet of choice tea, brewed it after his own fashion and invited all the ladies to partake. He set forth quite a little feast for them, cakes, fruit, and preserved strawberries, which latter he begged they would try in their tea. At home, he told them, the men drank from glasses, the ladies from cups, and a spoonful of the sweets was considered an addition to a cup of tea.

Gabriella was the first to try it, and was enthusiastic in her praises, to the delight of the Russian, who became quite gay over his little tea-party and who made a genial and courteous host. The Dutchman never left Sidney’s side, to Gabriella’s delight.

She sought Sidney’s room at a later hour. “Wasn’t it fun?” she cried, as she established herself on the foot of the bed. “Shall you like living in Holland, Sidney? How dear you will look in a little white cap with a pair of brass bed-springs over your ears, or will you prefer the gold plate with a cap a-top and a bonnet perched upon that? And however will you manage to keep your house as clean as you will be expected to do?”

“I shall like it quite as well as you will like Russia,” retorted Sidney, “and I shall be able to keep my house clean quite as easily as you will know how to control a half savage household.”

Gabriella enjoyed the reply to the fullest. “It will be so exciting to have bouts with the moujiks, is that what they call them? They shall have so many lashes apiece if they don’t behave themselves. I shall have to learn to take preserves to my tea, as Miss Bailey says, but it will be very hard to learn the language; they say it is so difficult; that is one of the things that depresses me.”

“And what are some of the others?”

“I am afraid of having a bomb thrown under my carriage. It would be so unpleasant to be gathered up in a basket and be buried in sections.”

“Don’t mention such ghastly possibilities,” said Sidney in horror. “Go to bed before you give me occasion for nightmare. I’m tired to death.”

“So am I, but it is a pleasant sort of tired, and though I long to lie awake and think over the delightful things that happen every day I never have a chance, for I drop off to sleep right away. One thing before we part, Sid. Did you see Miss Bailey waylay me in the hall, the simple-minded dear?”

“Yes, what did she want?”

“She told me that I mustn’t mind Mr. Morgan’s not coming to-night, for she remembered that he had told her of a business call he had to make; as if I were interested.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her it was a matter of no interest to me, and she said ‘Ow, my deah,’ in that lovely English way of hers and looked shocked. I think she imagined in her simple old British heart that I was telling tarradiddles.”

“And were you?” asked Sidney, sharply.

“Good-night,” returned Gabriella.

CHAPTER XIV
WHITHER? TOGETHER

Much was crowded into the next few weeks, for, with all Paris to see and the important matter of gowns and hats to attend to, there was little idle time. Since Gabriella’s extravagance consisted in the ordering of but one gown at a modest price, and a simple hat, she had rather more leisure than the other two, who had frequent visits to pay to dressmakers, and who started off together in the early morning, leaving Gabriella to follow at her convenience. That Gabriella made the most of these unfettered moments may well be imagined; if she did not spend them at the Louvre with the Russian, she took advantage of the time to explore out-of-the-way places with the Briton. Upon the Dutchman her blandishments had little effect, for he was a follower in Sidney’s train and to her quiet little self gave his undivided attention whenever she would permit, though one day at the end of three weeks he took a sudden departure.

There were days, too, when the whole party, the Baileys included, would take a trip to Versailles or to Fontainebleau. One afternoon gave them an outing up the river to St. Cloud, and an early morning expedition was made to the market. And thus the time passed rapidly and happily till at the end of a month they were still lingering in Paris, but making feeble efforts to leave. By this time the Baileys had taken their departure, though Mr. Morgan still tarried.

“It is the dressmakers and the shopping and all that which has taken so much time,” said Miss Cavendish one morning as she set upon her handsome head a hat which had just been sent home.

“Yes, but it has been worth while,” returned Gabriella, regarding her admiringly. “You are a dream in that hat, Gem. I don’t see how you are to escape returning a countess or at least a marquise, if you appear in it.”

“As if I were so silly as to be dazzled by a title,” said Miss Cavendish, taking off the hat and turning it around on her hand. “No, my dear, I shall remain Isabella Cavendish to the end of the chapter.”

“I don’t believe it,” retorted Gabriella. “We have none of us escaped the adoration of foreign masculines, so why should you, who are the best looking? Anything more distinguished than you in that hat it would be hard to find. As for Sidney, she is a new creature. Her friends won’t know her in her costumes which we shall take the credit of having selected.”

“If I am not to be recognized I shall be sorry that I have them,” remarked Sidney, who had just come into the room with an open letter in her hand and an expression of half amusement, half annoyance upon her face. “It seems mean to show you this, but it is too funny to keep.”

“What is it?” asked Gabriella, holding out her hand.

“On second thoughts I’ll not show you; I’ll simply tell you the contents of this letter. It is from Mr. van Schepel and it is a proposal of marriage.”

Gabriella clapped her hands. “What did I tell you? I knew his philanderings meant something. Oh, Sid, now you will have a chance to wear the monster ring.”

“Nonsense, Gabriella,” returned Sidney. “Of course I couldn’t accept him. He has written in such funny English that at first I couldn’t tell just what he meant, but at the end, when he said that he would have offered himself before he left Paris, but he had to ask the consent of his parents first, then I understood.”

“Good little boy! Did he really say that, Sid?”

“He certainly did. Listen.” She read a few sentences from her letter.

“I can scarce believe it in this age and generation. Isn’t it delicious? Go on, what else?”

“He says that he will return to Paris at once if I will accept him, and that he left hastily that he might return before we left.”

“Dear me.”

“Oh, but I threw cold water upon that plan. I wrote him that it would not be the slightest use for him to return, for I had left my heart in America.”

“And have you?” asked Gabriella quickly.

The soft color overspread Sidney’s face as she said: “It seemed the best excuse, and one that would not allow of any protest.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Which you haven’t any right to ask,” put in Miss Cavendish. “That was a wise reply, Sidney.”

“I am sure I never gave him any undue encouragement, do you think I did, Gem? He always would come, you know, and I was merely polite.”

“He had the good taste to observe your own individual charm, dear, and perhaps your sweet courtesy was misunderstood.”

“That comes of being too amiable,” returned Sidney. “I am sure I didn’t intend to make him think I favored him, but he evidently thinks I did. I am sorry.”

“I shouldn’t let it bother me in the very least,” Gabriella was ready with advice. “I find that a very little affability goes a great way with these foreigners. I am constantly having to turn and rend the Russian or I am confident that I should be carried off willy-nilly. I don’t know yet that I shall escape. It is a great temptation, however, to see just how far you can go without damage.”

“I shouldn’t go too far, you might arouse the bear’s ugly side. I’ll be ready in a minute, Gem. I hope Madame Picot will not keep us an hour as she did the last time.” And Sidney left the room.

“I think I shall go to the Louvre,” remarked Gabriella, drumming thoughtfully on the table. “You are not likely to be back before déjeuner, I suppose. Perhaps I shall go to the Bon Marché to see if they have any more of those feathers that I have been yearning for ever since I saw them. Gem, do you suppose Sidney really has left her heart in America, and that is why she has that far-away look sometimes and seems so indifferent.”

“I think it is not unlikely. Sidney is not the expansive young person that you are, and does not discuss such matters with the freedom of Gabriella Thorne.”

“Do you think I tell everything?”

“I should not be far from wrong if I said I did.”

“Well, I don’t,” returned Gabriella, diving into a drawer for her gloves. “Good-by, Lovely. I shall probably be back to déjeuner, but if I am not don’t worry. I shall avoid international questions to-day, and shall give Monsieur Le Russe to understand that I cannot allow my fortune to be devoted to the development of Russian mines.” She went out, leaving the effect of her breezy presence behind her.

“Bless the child,” said Miss Cavendish to herself, “she is a joy even at her naughtiest.”

Into the clean street Gabriella stepped, passing the surly concierge with a smile and a bon jour. In the doorway of the small laiterie across the way stood the woman from whom Gabriella frequently bought a supply of cream for the afternoon tea which the three prepared in their own rooms. The girl gave a cheery nod to the little shopkeeper. At the corner was the boy from whom she bought her daily Herald, and he smiled at her recognition of him. As she made a dash across the Champs Élysées for the entrance to the “Met,” she ran into the arms of some one crossing from the opposite side. “Oh, pardon, monsieur,” she exclaimed. She was answered by a laugh, and looking up, she saw Mr. Morgan. “Oh, is it you?” she said. “I feel less embarrassed since you prove not to be a Frenchman. I was in such a hurry to get out of the way of that dreadful red automobile that was bearing down upon me. I had only just escaped from a string of clattering cabs and thought I was safe. Isn’t the Champs Élysées dreadful?”

“It isn’t so bad now as in the spring and fall.”

“It is bad enough. Oh, never mind. I can get the rest of the way without endangering my life.”

“It is my way, too.”

“But you were going in the opposite direction.”

“Until I saw you.”

“Then where are you going, now?”

“Wherever you are, if you will allow.”

“I thought of going to the Louvre.”

“To meet Mr. Rowtowsky?”

“No, for I have just been telling Gem that I had decided not to invest my fortune in Russia. It would be disloyal to America, you know.”

Mr. Morgan smiled and looked down at her. “I think myself it would be rather unsafe at this time of dissension and disruption.”

“Thanks for your opinion. It is always so assuring to have a man’s views of such questions. I don’t know what would become of me if I had to exist without a million at my command. It would be dreadful if I were to lose my large inheritance by allowing my sentiment to overbalance my discretion.”

An amused look came into Mr. Morgan’s eyes. “It must be a delightful experience to possess unlimited means,” he said. “You American girls are so frank. It is refreshing to hear you speak so candidly of your fortune. Most of us would be a little shy about it.”

“But I never am shy. I was not as a child; Gem can tell you that. Here comes our train, if you insist upon the Louvre this morning.”

“I don’t insist; I even would suggest the Luxembourg.”

“Then let us go there. I am glad of the chance, for I don’t know my way so well about that quarter, and you can take all the responsibility.”

“I shall be delighted.”

They retraced their steps, turned aside and found the proper tram for the Luxembourg quarter and were presently at the gallery. “You have not told me yet how you are pleased with the modern French school,” said Mr. Morgan. “Now that you have seen the Salon as well as the older exhibitions, what is your verdict?”

“I think the modern school has made a wonderful advance in landscape painting. It is as if they had only lately discovered atmosphere and color for out-door pictures, but when it comes to an expression on canvas of a spiritual truth, in genre painting, I cannot see that they have gained. I was disappointed in the Salon, I must confess.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because there was such an evidence of a materialistic spirit. After coming from a study of those old Italian paintings I missed the real fervor, the real divine spark. These modern men know how to put on paint, I admit, but they have no soul, and after all when it comes to technique, who can equal Franz Hals? And as to color, where can Titian be excelled, or Palma Vecchio, or Rubens? And as to the intense spirituality of the old masters it can never be approached in this age. Even old Cimabue and Giotto have a far greater charm for me than these modern flesh painters, who are not artists after all.”

“Do you include all in that assertion? What of your own Sargent?”

“Oh, I don’t mean to say that I think there are no artists nowadays, but that there are very few, and I do maintain that there was more real artistic feeling, more of the divine spark, in that long ago, before faith grew cold and Mammon was god of all.”

“Yet you couldn’t exist without a million at your command, you said a while ago.”

“Did I? Oh, well, I am not an artist. Genius always burns more brightly in a garret than in a palace, and thrives better on a crust than on a pâté-de-foies-gras, though, for my own part, I prefer the latter. I might make a compromise, however, and be perfectly willing to subsist for the rest of my life upon spaghetti pomo d’ora.”

“It isn’t half bad, I admit, and I know of a little place off the Boulevard des Italiennes where they cook it to perfection. Suppose we go there and have a dish of it for our luncheon. Can’t we do that?”

“I confess it tempts me. Would it— Do you think— Could Gem object?”

“If you think so, of course we will not go.”

Gabriella thought he looked a little hurt and answered quickly: “On second thoughts I don’t see how anyone could possibly object, and I think it would be great fun. I shouldn’t hesitate at home, so why here?”

“Why indeed? Then when you have had your fill of the Luxembourg pictures let us go into the garden and watch the people.”

“I am ready now, for I like the gardens,” returned Gabriella, “they are the very expression of liberté, fraternité and égalité. It does me good to see families congregating there, mothers with their sewing and mending, chatting to their neighbors, and the little children playing around. The little things come to no harm, for when they are not directly under the eyes of the mothers they have the guardianship of the gendarmes. These people know how to get fresh air and be sociable at the same time.”

“The Latins are very different from the Anglo-Saxons in the matter of sociability. We put hedges around our gardens and lock our gates to keep out the rabble, while here the green parks are free to all, and the Frenchman prefers to take his breakfast in the eyes of the world instead of behind closed doors. How do you manage such things in America?”

“Oh, we close the doors. Our parks and squares are generally open, however, though they are generally given over to the nursemaids and their charges, with a sprinkling of tramps. An American woman would no more think of doing her week’s mending in the public square than she would think of flying. See that dear creature over there putting a patch upon her husband’s blue blouse; she looks as placid and content as possible; and that little body next her with the knitting has evidently an interesting tale to tell. This is a much better way to get the neighborhood news than to leave the breakfast dishes in order to hang over the back fence or to shut oneself up in a stuffy little room while the children squabble in the gutter.”

“You are not the aggressive upholder of American institutions that one sometimes meets.”

“I hope not. I am aggressive when persons attack those things of which they know nothing, but I see our faults and I can admire good wherever I see it.”

“I wonder what you will think of England and Wales.”

“I expect to love them. I have gone wild over every country even when I had the disadvantage of not knowing the languages, so what will I do when I get to England? I hope we can go to Wales, but Gem is not sure that we can. Sidney is only lent to us for six months, though Miss Cavendish means to stretch the time and call it six months from the time we landed till we sail for home. We are due in London the first of August, a stupid time to be there, they tell me, but we cannot be in each place in May and June, which we are always told are the proper months, and what is one to do?”

“It does seem rather an intricate question, but I am sure you will find enough to interest you in London at any season of the year.”

The bells rang out the noonday hour and they started forth through the historic old streets where long-haired students passed them and smiling little maidens, in gay fripperies, tripped along, where fruit vendors cried their wares and flower girls offered bouquets, until they had crossed the river, the square towers of Notre Dame looming up to their right and the Arc de Triomphe, a reminder of past glories, on their left. “It is a beautiful city.” Gabriella gave utterance to the fact as if it had newly come to her knowledge. “It seems to me that it grows more beautiful each time I view it from a new point, yet I should never care to make my home here. A season, a year, yes, I’d like that, but after all, when one wants steady satisfaction it must be furnished by a place which is something more than merely gay and amusing.”

“Yet Paris has its sober side, its intellectual enjoyment to offer. Down there at the Sorbonne you can fancy there is some serious thinking.”

“Yes, but one scarcely ever confronts that side unless he makes a business of seeking it. Even the poor here appear to take their poverty in a less self-absorbed way than with us. They don’t look so utterly and hopelessly miserable, but as if they could take their thoughts off themselves and be amused if anything came along.”

“Yet there is wretchedness enough.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, but it isn’t so palpable as in some cities. Is this the place? Isn’t it queer?”

It was the haunt of foreigners, of artists, authors and journalists, so there was a Bohemian smack to the occasion which pleased Gabriella’s love of the unconventional. The presence of two or three respectable American ladies, however, gave her a sense of safety, and she felt no compunctions. Over their dish of sphaghetti, with a straw-covered flask of Chianti, the two lingered, imagining themselves back in Italy, and the talk grew reminiscent and personal, so that they tarried long and only left the place with reluctance.

“It is such charming weather,” said Mr. Morgan, as they issued from the dim little restaurant, “that it seems a shame to waste any time in-doors. What do you say to making a day of it and of going to the Bois? I’d be willing to listen even to Browning if I could hear you read it out-of-doors. We can stop in at Brentano’s and get a copy of anything you may prefer, as a reminder of Florence, and we will add a bit of poetry to our reminiscence of this day. Will you agree?”

Gabriella consented. She would live for the hour, she told herself. It would soon be over, so why not enjoy it while she could? She would not stop to consider what might be the outcome. Sufficient unto the day was the pleasure thereof, and with this decision made, she was ready to be her gayest, her happiest, her most charming.

Under the shadow of a great tree the hours of the afternoon passed quickly for both. If there were not much poetry read, there was much felt, and when Mr. Morgan scribbled Gabriella’s name and the date on the fly-leaf of the book he had bought, and asked her to keep it as a remembrance of the day, she accepted without demur, and gave him, at his asking for a keepsake, a quaint silver bauble, the tiniest of silver frames, into which she had stuck a miniature photograph of a Fra Angelica angel. She had carried the wee frame, in her pocketbook ever since the day when the two had been together at San Miniato; she had bought the little souvenir that same afternoon on the Ponto Vecchio.

It was six o’clock before the truant entered the room where Miss Cavendish was preparing for dinner. “Well, you little runaway,” exclaimed she, “you did make a day of it. Give an account of yourself. Where have you been?”

“Where I shall never go again,” replied Gabriella unsteadily. “It has been a heavenly day, Gem dear, but it is over. It has passed into the has beens; it will never come back again. The glory of Paris has departed, and I don’t care how soon we leave it.”

Miss Cavendish put down the brush she was holding. She saw the tear-drops shining on Gabriella’s long lashes. She looked at the quivering lips which tried to smile and she opened her arms and gathered the girl close to her. “Dear baby,” she whispered, “what has gone wrong?”

For a moment Gabriella rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, then she choked back a rising sob and answered: “Everything has gone wrong, and it is not any better because it is all my own fault. I have been the entire day with Mr. Morgan.”

“Why, Gabriella Thorne!”

“Yes, I may as well ’fess. Let me keep my face so against your shoulder, Gem, and don’t look at me while I am telling you. I am safe here, but if it were not for you I could not do without my mother. I met Mr. Morgan just as I was going out this morning. We went to the Luxembourg and then to a funny little foreign place to luncheon; it was all so dear and queer and unusual. We talked a great deal, of course, and became very confidential, so that we seemed to know each other better than ever before. I felt myself going, but I just let myself go, and jumped, yes, actually jumped at the idea of spending the afternoon with him at the Bois reading. We didn’t read much, but I shall never forget what we did read. I have the comfort of possessing the little book at least; there it is on the bed; he gave it to me. Before we came away he—he— Oh Gem, I was a fool to pretend that I was an heiress, for somehow I couldn’t seem to find a chance to tell him differently or else I was contrary, I don’t know which, and of course he thought I was rich; he wouldn’t have asked me else, I am afraid; and of course I had to refuse him because I knew he thought I had money, and he is going to leave the city to-night and I shall never see him again, never.”

Miss Cavendish held her closer. “And do you care, sweetheart?”

Gabriella lifted her wet eyes and looked past the taller woman. “Care, of course I care, but I didn’t know how much till I saw him turn the corner and knew I couldn’t call him back. Now I am caring more and more every minute the further he gets from me, and I can never let him know, for he considers what I said as final, and so it is; it has to be, you see.”

“I don’t exactly see, for if he really loves you he will not care whether you are rich or not.”

“But he wouldn’t have loved me unless he had thought me rich, and when he finds out that I have deceived him, that I have been playing the adventuress, don’t you see he must despise me?”

“Not if he understands that it was all a joke.”

“But it wasn’t so much of a joke that I couldn’t have told him when we were getting so confidential.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because, as I told you, I was a contrary fool, and because I was determined to think he was thinking of the money side of it, and that made me mad.”

“I cannot yet see that the matter is hopeless.”

“It is very nice of you to try to comfort me, but it is quite hopeless, for either he was attracted by my supposed wealth, in which case he is quite impossible, or else he would be disillusioned if he knew what a fraud I had been, in which case I am quite impossible, so there is an end of it.”

“It seems dreadful that our journey of joy must be turned to one of sorrow for you, dearie. I cannot but feel that you will see him again, for there are the Baileys, you know.”

“Do you suppose I could ever mention the subject to them? I’d die first. Never mind, Gem, I shall get along. Don’t feel too sorry for me, perhaps it won’t hurt as much as I think it will. No, I don’t want any dinner, please.”

CHAPTER XV
A MEDIÆVAL TOWN

Once out of Paris Gabriella’s spirits revived and her love of the novel and artistic asserted itself. Youth loves change, and indeed, for most sorrows there is perhaps no better cure than new scenes and new interests. Therefore when Rouen’s towers and belfries arose before the travellers it was Gabriella who appeared most enthusiastic.

They had something of an adventure at the very outset and Gabriella’s sense of humor was too great for her not to appreciate the situation and to be the merriest of the party which endured a long wait at the railway station. They had driven off gaily enough from Madame Morelle’s, themselves in one open carriage and their baggage piled high in another, arriving in ample time to secure their places. “Is this the train for Rouen?” asked Miss Cavendish, who had been told that there were no second-class carriages on certain of the trains.

“Oui, madame,” was the prompt reply of the guard, who hurried them into their places, and to their surprise they were on their way in less than five minutes.

“My watch cannot be so far wrong, and besides I looked at the clock in the station and we had a full half-hour,” said Miss Cavendish. “I imagined that it was a greater distance from the house, or I could have started later. We must have caught an earlier train.”

“So much the better,” was Gabriella’s prompt reply. “We shall get to Rouen that much the sooner.”

“But I told them our trunks were for the four-thirty train.”

“Never mind, we can either wait for them or can make a little turn about the town until the next train comes in.”

However they arrived in a drizzling rain and concluded not to attempt any tour of investigation. “It was an earlier train, you see,” said Miss Cavendish.

“Well, we can wait here just as well as in Paris,” said Sidney, and they stationed themselves upon a bench outside the waiting-room.

An official approached. Could he assist them? No, they told him, they were but waiting for the arrival of the next train. They thought he looked a little surprised, but they were not discomfited. They walked up and down; they watched the primitive method of switching off cars from one track to another by means of a rope and a small turn-table; they watched the clock. They began to feel the pangs of hunger, but they perceived no way of satisfying their appetites. There were no preparations visible for the arrival of their train. The woman who sold newspapers and postal cards shut up shop and went home. The men disappeared one by one. The place took on a deserted look.

“They can’t have told us wrong,” Miss Cavendish exclaimed at last. “Sidney, you speak the most fluent French; go ask again if our luggage came on the train with us.”

Sidney and Gabriella walked off to the baggage room, soon returning with the report that the familiar little hand trunks were not there.

“I know perfectly well that there was a train to leave at half-past four,” Miss Cavendish began again to explain, “and I as well know that we came on an earlier one, so now what has become of that later one? That is what I should like to know.” She approached the guard, who was now the sole representative of office to be seen. “When does the next train arrive from Paris?” she asked.

“A dix heures, madame,” he replied.

“Ten o’clock!” exclaimed Miss Cavendish, astonished. “But I was told in Paris that the train following the one on which we came would be here at seven-thirty.”

“Yes, madame, at the other station.”

“The other station!” Miss Cavendish stared aghast. She turned to the girls. Gabriella did not attempt to restrain her laughter, but Sidney gave heed to their astonished leader, who said: “There seems to be another station at which trains from Paris arrive, and our luggage is there, of course. Try to straighten this out, Sidney.”

Sidney came to her rescue, and after an animated conversation accompanied by many gesticulations on the part of the guard and expressions of regret that the ladies should have endured so long a wait for nothing, they learned that a certain tram would take them to the other station.

It was still raining drearily. It was after eight o’clock. They were hungry; they were weary. After leaving the car there was a long bridge to cross. “Why didn’t we take a cab?” groaned Sidney.

“Because the man told us to take a car,” snapped Gabriella; then she began to laugh. “It is so funny,” she cried, “to think we should have spent hours in that stuffy old station when we might this minute have been comfortably lodged and fed.”

“Whoever could have imagined that the trains would be so erratic,” complained Miss Cavendish. “No one could possibly surmise that an orderly train would take it upon itself to be so unaccommodating.”

“Perhaps we should then have taken an accommodation train,” suggested Gabriella.

“Oh, do hush,” exclaimed Miss Cavendish, more out of sorts than they had ever seen her. “If one leaves a certain station in Paris and arrives at a certain station in Rouen, what more reasonable to suppose than that the next train would do the same? Who could dream that they could go flying off in this absurd way?”

“Nobody could dream of any such thing, Gem dear,” said Gabriella soothingly.

“And I needn’t be cross about it, need I?” returned Miss Cavendish, rather ashamed of her ill humour.

They found their trunks without difficulty and snugly established in a cab they were driven to their lodgings where, late as it was, they found a supper awaiting them, and were pleased to discover that they had secured a pleasant abiding place in the home of an Englishwoman who lived at the edge of the town.

“Two pictures stand out before me when I think of Rouen,” said Miss Cavendish when they started out on their pilgrimage the next day. “One is that fearful siege when for months Henry Fifth’s troops lay before the city, and the other is the trial of poor little Jeanne d’Arc.”

“Poor dear,” sighed Sidney, “I expect to be wrought upon to the last degree here in Rouen.”

“I am sorry the old town walls are not standing.”

Gabriella looked down the broad street. “I should like to look over them and imagine the English soldiers encamped before them.”

“I am rather glad they have been done away with,” confessed Miss Cavendish, “for when one thinks of that haggard, starving, hopeless company of refugees gathered in the moat outside the city wall, the little children perishing for bread, the gaunt, bony, skeleton-like men and women, the fifteen thousand from other cities who had taken refuge within the walls of Rouen and for whom there was no food within the walls, when one thinks of those it is well not to have the picture made more vivid. Think of them, girls, feeding upon such a pitiful supply of roots and grass as could be dug from that barren moat. Think of the babies born but to be drawn up in a basket for baptism and lowered again but to die. No wonder that hundreds perished each night and that others went mad. No wonder that Canon de Livet stood high on the ramparts and cursed the English.”

“Oh, don’t, don’t, Gem,” cried Gabriella, her eyes filling, “you are making the picture too ghastly, too horrible.”

“It is Rouen’s history.”

“I know that it is, but let us take the romantic, happy side of the town’s story.”

“No, go on,” Sidney gravely encouraged a continuation of the tale. “We ought to know the misery of life as well as the joy. How did the siege end, Gem? I forget the details.”

“On Christmas day the English sent out food to the starving band. Some say it was refused, but I think we may rely upon others who tell us that it was only too horribly accepted with cries like those of wild animals. But the little food only prolonged the agony, for the English lines were not again opened in mercy and the siege went on. Toward the middle of January, the people having starved long enough, the terms of capitulation were made. The lives of nine persons only were demanded; the rest could go free. Only one, however, suffered death.”

“And who was he?”

“Alain Blanchard was beheaded. He was captain of the Arbalétriers, and was the moving spirit of the town’s resistance. There is a street now named for him; we will hunt it up, for though for many years he was regarded as a half mythical hero, later investigations proved that he was actually a loyal, brave man who died for his country after having made every sacrifice to rescue it from English rule.”

“How long after that did Jeanne d’Arc come upon the scene?” Sidney asked, as she wandered down the wide boulevard which followed the line of the former city wall.

“The end of 1419 saw the end of Normandy’s resistance to the English. Jeanne d’Arc was then a little country girl running after the pigs and chickens in the farmyard at Domremy. She was not quite thirteen when the ‘voices’ came to her, poor little lass, so young, so helpless, so scared. ‘I am a poor girl, I cannot even ride,’ was her first answer to the voices, you remember.”

“But she didn’t give up.”

“She gained strength of purpose as time went on, and at last she did appear before the king, but you know the rest of the story.”

“Such a pitiful one, and here in Rouen the dear, sweet maid was burned to death.” Gabriella spoke with pathetic regret as if La Pucelle had been a personal friend.

“Yes, that happened in the Vieux Marché. We will find the place. There is the tower where she was taken to be tried before her judges. At first she was kept in an iron cage, there in one of the castle towers, with four soldiers to guard her as she lay chained to a log of wood. The donjon, however, is the scene of her splendid courage in answering her judges as she did. The tower, aside from this interest, is a fine example of a mediæval donjon tower. It was the dungeon of the castle of Bouvreuil.”

“Dear Gem, how she does cram for our benefit,” remarked Gabriella. “I watch her poring over her books with a sense of helpless idleness.”

“She loves to do it,” Sidney assured her, “and after, Rella, she gets the best of it, for I don’t doubt but she reads up a great deal more than she tells us.”

They crossed the street and entered the old tower. The moat had given place to a fresh green sward, but the thick walls, the little slits of windows from which the young prisoner must have looked wistfully forth, the massive masonry of the entire building all evidenced the age of the structure and gave the visitors a sense of its strength. They crept up the spiral stairway to the upper rooms, deserted and silent reminders of bygone tragedies.

“I feel as if it had all been but yesterday,” said Sidney, as they issued into the open air and beheld the beds of flowers sweetly blooming under the free sky at the very threshold of the grim old dungeon. “It gives me a catch at the heart, and I feel as if I could almost hear that poor little peasant girl’s last words as she was borne along in that rough cart through the uneven streets,” Sidney went on.

“It is too much for me,” said Gabriella. “If I follow up the Maid of Orleans’ last hours I shall not be fit for anything. Let us pass over the moment when they scattered her ashes upon the Seine and take up some other subject.”

“But we must go to Bonsecours and see the memorial.”

“Oh, yes, but that was an afterthought, a late and very insufficient expiation. How could they think her guilty?”

“Because they accused her of witchcraft. We did not do much better two hundred years later. It was the English who were responsible.”

“That is what I insisted to—” Gabriella bit her lip and turned to look up at the beautiful towers of St. Ouen.

“The most beautiful Gothic church, the purest example, it is said, to be found on the continent.” Miss Cavendish gave the information as they approached the stately edifice. “As you know, there is little left of old Rouen, and even mediæval Rouen is fast disappearing in the progress which insists upon new boulevards and modern architecture.”

“It is a pity, don’t you think?” said Sidney.

“It is from an artistic point of view, yet for health’s sake streets must be widened, foul old buildings must be done away with. The people need fresh air and cleanliness if they would advance and cope with the rest of the world. There is, however, discretion used in making changes and we shall see some truly mediæval streets and houses. The church was named for St. Ouen who was buried here in 689, but the present building is the fifth on the site. The earliest was at that time without the city walls. The former abbey of St. Ouen was supposed to have been founded in 523, but there is also a tradition that a church was founded nearly two centuries before, and that its name was changed to the present one when St. Ouen’s body was brought to it for burial.”

“It certainly is a noble church,” remarked Gabriella, as they stepped inside. “It satisfies me, Gem, in almost every detail. That cauliflower window is bad, but the others are a delight. It is more delightful than the cathedral. I shall want to come in here many times before we leave Rouen.”

“The centuries have left too many impressions of the various hands which have wrought out the cathedral for it to be altogether satisfactory,” remarked Miss Cavendish, “though, like the curate’s egg, ‘it is excellent in parts.’”

“I like the dear little old crypt of St. Gervais,” Sidney said. “It is so early and so Christian. It dates from before the time of the cathedral and is as interesting as anything we have seen. Dear me, we shall get deeper and deeper into legend and history the longer we tarry here. The stories are fascinating; that one of Fredegond and Brunhilda, and the fable of St. Romain who delivered Rouen from a dreadful monster, and which gave rise to the Privilege du St. Romain.”

“I like the tale of Rou or Rolf or Rollo, or whatever his name was,” rejoined Gabriella. “It pleases me to think of a yellow-haired viking coming out of the north, blowing upon his ivory horn and waving his blood red banner. Rolf the Ganger, the sea king, who took possession of this submissive land, but who was willing to become vassal to the king’s daughter. I like the way the record reads: ‘he received from the Karoling King all the lands from the river Epte and westwards to Brittany with the hand of the Princess Gisela.’ It is delightful to think he could hang his golden bracelets on a tree in his hunting forest where they remained till he came that way again.”

“That was because of the strictness of his laws more than because of the honesty of his followers, I am inclined to think,” Miss Cavendish observed. “Those old pirate dukes and their followers could scarcely have been distinguished by a modesty which forbade them to take what they found.”

“I like the story of Richard the Fearless, too,” Sidney went on, “and of the Sacristan of St. Ouen. Oh, yes, Rouen can supply us with legends and fables for months to come.”

“But just now,” Miss Cavendish reminded her, “I think we must remember that our déjeuner will be served in just five minutes.”

Normandy cider and clotted cream were among the other local delicacies offered them, and so refreshed were they by their good repast that they decided to start out again immediately, making their way through the older and more tortuous streets to the river where they would find a car for Bonsecours. This took them to a height which overlooked the valley and the town, and here they could gaze upon the memorial to Jeanne d’Arc, that statue which represents the young peasant in all her girlish simplicity. For an hour they lingered, lounging on the grass and looking down on the valley below, reading snatches of legend and history from the book they had brought. Then they returned to wander about the quaint old streets, up the Rue de la Mesure, and down the Rue Damisette, hanging over the enticing shop windows and gazing upon the Grosse Horloge, then to step in to view St. Ouen by afternoon light and to buy bits of Rouenese faience on their way up the Rue de Romain.

A second visit to the cathedral brought them unexpectedly the next morning upon the market place where the Normandy peasants were crying their wares and where fresh fruits and vegetables, meats and fish, rabbits, pigeons, ribbons, laces, clothing and books, jostled each other on the stands. Their exit was made through a huge old archway which framed the market scene appropriately as they looked back.

More churches, St. Maclou, exquisite in its symmetry and its beautiful carvings, St. Godard and St. Patrice with their splendid stained glass, St. Vincent with its little laborer standing on the outside of one of the buttresses, and looking out over the river. Then again to take a parting look at St. Ouen and the great cathedral, a last glance at the Tour de Beurre, at the beautiful Cour d’Albane, and then to turn with a sigh from all that Rouen represented, feeling that rich in history, legend and architecture, and lovely in situation as the city was, they would have missed much in passing it by, for it would remain as one of the treasured memories of their trip.

CHAPTER XVI
A GOOD CROSSING

It was not without trepidation that the three travellers embarked at Dieppe. Visions of a long and rough passage across the Channel arose before them and they watched the receding shores of France momentarily expecting an attack of mal de mer, but the sea was as smooth as a mill pond and all their fears were groundless, for a less eventful, monotonous and easy trip could not be imagined. There was the inevitable long wait for the customs at Newhaven, but they had reached an English-speaking country and began to experience a homelike feeling before even the Sussex downs came in sight. It was late when they reached London, but it was not difficult to bargain for a four wheeler, and they felt the sombre dignity of London’s streets as soon as they had passed out of the station, and had turned toward the great centre for American tourists, Russell Square.

“This lovely cab system,” said Gabriella, sinking back comfortably, “is such a boon to the traveller voyaging into the unknown. Why don’t we import it with a few other things? Imagine only paying two or three shillings to go this distance. When we cram our cars as full as we can get them so there is not even standing room, why don’t we clamor for cheap cabs? It is ridiculous to be satisfied with such miserably uncomfortable or expensive ways of getting about as we endure. I shall lobby for a bill to settle cab rates as soon as I get home, and thereby receive the undying gratitude of my fellow countrymen.”

“Gabriella is always going to do such wonderful things,” remarked Sidney. “One would think she meant to revolutionize the entire world to hear her. Doesn’t London seem quiet after Paris? London! Is it really true that we are here? We aren’t dreaming, are we?”

“No more than we were in Rome or Paris,” returned Miss Cavendish.

“I shall be dreaming very soon,” declared Gabriella. “Let me but find a pillow upon which to rest my weary head, and I will do all the dreaming necessary for the occasion. It is very dim and hazy and Londonish, isn’t it? But, oh, what a comfort it is going to be when we can gabble out our difficulties in our own tongue to some friendly bobby. I am eager for the fray. Will our landlady drop her h’s and will there be a Boots and a slatternly maid such as we always read about in English novels?”

“Let us hope the slatternly maid at least will be left out,” returned Miss Cavendish. “We shall soon know, for I think this is our street.”

As they drew up before the door from every house within the square arose the clangor of gongs. “Does that mean dinner, or is it their way of welcoming us?” asked Gabriella, as she gathered up her bag and umbrella.

“Presumably it is dinner,” answered Miss Cavendish.

“Then ho, for the roast beef, the mighty joint and the staying pudding,” said Gabriella, as she stepped upon the pavement.

“The room is beastly and the bed is a rotter,” was the girl’s comment after they had been shown their apartments.

“Why, Gabriella Thorne,” exclaimed her roommate, shocked at the expressions.

“That is purely English,” was the calm response. “I have even heard Miss Mildred use those terms, and I have no doubt the king speaks those very words at times. There are words which we use with freedom but which they look upon here with horror; I will not mention them lest I shock the walls of this very dingy room. Is the dressing bureau placed in front of the window so we may not look out upon the mews, do they call them?”

“Never mind what they call them. Don’t try to be English in such a startling manner, or you will terrify me.” And Gabriella followed her friends down to dinner. The meal was substantial and good; all the efforts of their landlady were evidently centred upon this department, for the house itself bore a shabby and neglected look.

“It is rather depressing,” Miss Cavendish admitted, examining their apartments when they had returned to them, “but we shall be in our rooms very little of the time, and as we have brought all our luggage here we may as well stay and see how it impresses us at the end of a week.” Then they entered upon a discussion as to their plans for the next day. Miss Cavendish wanted first of all to see Westminster Abbey, Gabriella was for the National Gallery, while Sidney yearned for a trip to Windsor and on to Stoke Poges. “It would be so lovely to worship in that dear little church, and to see the graveyard which inspired Gray’s Elegy,” she argued.

Miss Cavendish consulted her Baedeker. “But Sidney, dear, if we go there it ought to be on a day when we can see the State apartments at Windsor. There is no use in making two bites at a cherry.” So Sidney yielded and Gabriella compromised by giving up the galleries and by going to St. Paul’s for the afternoon service and to Westminster in the morning. Then began their sight-seeing, which they pursued so systematically and energetically that at the end of two weeks Sidney looked pale, Miss Cavendish declared that she had mental indigestion, and Gabriella was so wan and listless that her godmother became alarmed. The girl had been anxious to occupy her every moment since their arrival in London and never wanted to be left alone a moment or to be obliged to spend the day in the house even when the others were glad of a respite from the continual sight-seeing. Though they might be exhausted she would urge them to further effort and wherever they went the graceful little figure of Gabriella was always in the lead.

“We all need a change,” Miss Cavendish declared. “We have gone so steadily since we came here; it has been warm, and we have walked such distances looking at pictures and museums and such things that I think it would be best to fly London for a time. What do you say, girls, to a week by the sea? Miss Bailey is very urgent in begging us to join her and her sister at that quiet little place in Sussex, so why not go? It will do us all a world of good.”

Gabriella immediately brightened at the prospect. “I should like it of all things,” she answered.

“Do you think we can get in anywhere?” Sidney asked. “You know everybody leaves London in August, and we have been told that all the watering places are simply packed.”

“We will see what we can do,” was the reply. “I will write to Miss Bailey at once and see if we can secure lodgings.”

“Lodgings? Real lodgings where you have a sitting-room and have your meals served as you choose?” Sidney was interested.

“All that.”

“‘THERE IS A LITTLE OLD CHURCH NEXT TO CROSBY HALL ... AND WE SHALL WANT TO SEE THAT.’”

“Oh, how delightful. Can we do our own marketing?”

“I imagine so.”

“Then do let us go. I think it will be a delightful change. I will look up the Windsor Castle route while you are writing, for we might not be able to get that in when we come back to London and ought to do it before we go. To-day we go to the City and hunt up that old Crosby Hall and lunch there, isn’t that the plan?”

Miss Cavendish replied affirmatively and prepared to write her letter to Miss Bailey.

Their frequent rides on top of a ’bus had familiarized them with London streets and they had become nimble in climbing up and down and in distinguishing the proper words: “Piccadilly Circus,” “Oxford Street,” or “Bayswater” among the maze of signs which advertised Nestle’s Food, Van Houten’s Cocoa and the like articles. Gabriella generally managed to get next the driver, and by so going added many an item to their fund of information. It was she who had discovered that Crosby Hall was worth visiting. “It is in the old, old part of the city,” she told the others, “and the name of the streets down that way are fascinating: Threadneedle Street, Bishopsgate Within, Bartholomew’s Lane. There is a little old church next to Crosby Hall—St. Helen’s is the name of it—and we shall want to see that.”

As they stood before the venerable Hall, Miss Cavendish remarked: “And this was considered at one time to be the finest residence in London. Shakespeare mentions it in Richard III, and no doubt had dined here more than once.”

“When it was a palace and not a restaurant,” returned Sidney. “It is certainly a fine old building and I suppose we should be thankful it has been preserved even for its present uses.”

“I don’t object to the uses,” declared Gabriella, “not when we can get such excellent chops as we shall probably find here.” They passed into the lobby and up the steps into the great banquet hall where, under a noble Gothic roof, they seated themselves and gave themselves up to a carnal enjoyment of the excellent food that was provided them, Miss Cavendish meanwhile offering morsels of the history relating to the building, which she found in a small book which had been presented to her as they entered. “It was built in 1466 by Sir John Crosby,” she gave her information between sips of ale from a quaint mug. “Afterward it belonged to Richard III. ‘Here,’ says my little book, ‘were hatched those intrigues which enabled the wily Richard to secure the crown.’ It goes on to say that the situation of the Hall was favorable, for it is near the Tower where the two little princes were murdered and—”

Gabriella laid down her knife and fork. “And to think we poor commonplace persons sit here eating mutton chops,” she said, looking around the room with a new interest.

“Sir Thomas More also lived here,” Miss Cavendish went on. “There is a list of the notables who were occupants at different times. Queen Elizabeth was a guest.”

“It seems much more intimate to eat in a place like this than merely to look at it,” remarked Sidney. “You feel a certain personal sense of possession when your chops have been cooked in that great fireplace.”

“Then think what a change from a palace to a Non-conformist meeting-house. Finally it was bought, restored and put to its present uses.”

“Which are exceedingly good ones,” decided Gabriella.

From the Hall they found their way to the ancient church set back in an enclosure which one could enter from Crosby Hall, and which they might have missed if they had not known where to look for it. As early as 1216 there was a nunnery connected with the church. To this parish belonged Shakespeare during his residence in London, and was rated in the parish books for five pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” said Miss Cavendish enthusiastically. “It has been one of our pleasantest London experiences. We had an unusual combination of old-time associations and surroundings with modern service.”

“It gave one a sense of fitness to see all those good-looking Englishmen with their mugs of ale and their chops, just as one always imagines them lunching,” said Sidney. “There is something exceedingly stalwart and dependable in the appearance of most Englishmen, I find.”

Gabriella looked sober and proposed that they finish their day at the Museum, which was always their stop-gap when nothing else specially invited. There was one uncanny, red-haired mummy, which Gabriella declared was perfectly fascinating, and which she never failed to look for whenever she visited the Museum; this and the Elgin marbles were her favorite exhibits. Miss Cavendish enjoyed the illuminated missals and manuscripts of various kinds, while Sidney preferred the scarabae and the treasures of ancient Egypt.

The early start for Windsor was made on a day when the sun was dimly shining, but when the air was soft and balmy, yet not too hot. With many other tourists they were rushed through the rooms of the castle and were glad to get out again into the open air. “Here and at the Tower were the only times that I have felt that I belonged to the common herd,” said Sidney as they issued from the courtyard. “It is good of them to let us see it at all, I suppose, and I did enjoy it, but I do dislike to be prodded and poked and urged to come along as if I were a stupid gaping Cockney who had only an insatiable curiosity for things which belonged to kings and queens.”

“Never mind, dear little aristocrat, you shall not be crowded at Stoke Poges,” Gabriella tried to console her.

A short railway journey to Slough, a drive of two miles over picturesque country roads brought them to the quiet little churchyard at Stoke Poges. They left their carriage a little way up the road and wandered across the fields to the church. There were but few other visitors, and the peaceful solitude was theirs to enjoy. “Could one imagine a more restful place,” murmured Miss Cavendish.

“Or a more beautiful English landscape,” put in Sidney.

“Or a dearer little church,” said Gabriella. “I could almost write an elegy myself. It is all here, Gem. I can hear the lowing herds; there is the ivy-mantled tower, though the moping owl seems to be missing, but there are the rugged elms and here where we are standing is the very yew tree’s shade.”

But Sidney had no words for her emotions and she mopped her eyes until Gabriella asked her if Melancholy had marked her for her own. “I didn’t suppose,” said Sidney by way of excuse, “that it could stay so exactly as it must have been when Gray used to come here, and when you find a thing like this that isn’t in the least disappointing, and that is as perfectly enchantingly peaceful and lovely as this is, you can’t help filling up and feeling as if you had realized a dream you never expected to come true. I suppose I am very incoherent, but I can’t help it. Don’t let us go back, Gem, till the very last minute. I wish we could spend days here, a Sunday anyhow, so I could come to this little church and could steep my soul in the loveliness of it all.”

“You brought the Elegy, I hope,” said Gabriella.

“No, but I can repeat it. You know it was my father’s favorite poem.” And she began the beautiful elegy, pausing every now and then at an interruption from one of the others, but at the close they all sat very thoughtful until Gabriella tip-toed across the grass to the tomb which enclosed the body of the poet and that of his mother. Here the girl stood and read the pathetic inscription, and then stooping, gathered a tiny flower and laid it on the slab.

“The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,” quoted Miss Cavendish, as the shadows deepened. “We must get back to the ‘madding crowd,’ girls.”

“Oh, but I can’t bear to,” exclaimed Sidney, rising reluctantly. “Don’t let’s ever go back. Let’s send for our best beloveds and stay here the rest of our lives.”

A leaf from the ivy-mantled tower, a bit of the yew tree, some photographs, and better than all, a sweet and lasting memory they carried away with them. Windsor Castle, in all its magnificence, filled their thoughts with less joy than did the quiet little churchyard set in the lush green of an English landscape.

“One doesn’t realize till going over the poem,” said Sidney, “how many ordinary quotations we take from it. I am always surprised myself, well as I know it. I must try to get an English copy and put my photograph in it with the ivy leaf and the bit of yew.” This finding of a simple copy she discovered was not an easy thing to do, and wondered that no enterprising publisher had seen the need of a cheap edition of proper size for the photograph, inasmuch as such would find a ready sale.

“London isn’t exactly lovable,” remarked Gabriella, as they passed through the tranquil streets where rows of sombre houses showed hazily. “It is dignified and kindly, while Paris is gay and amusing. It doesn’t seem to be London itself with its smoky atmosphere, and its general dinginess that one cares for, but it is the associations. It is altogether too big to be taken into your heart of hearts in the way we did the little church, yet you do admire it. I feel as if I might live here for centuries and still have to learn parts of it. We have been going, going constantly for three weeks, and yet there is much more to see than when we began, for every day something new turns up. I don’t believe I should ever care to live in London, but if all rural England is as charming as that part of it that we saw to-day, I shall love it, in spite of high walls, iron gates and unresponsiveness in general.”

“I don’t think it is unresponsive,” replied Sidney. “I think it is merely retiring. I like the way they make a garden of the back yards and have their tea out there. Why don’t we do such things? The back gardens are lovely and the people enjoy them as we never do. I think afternoon tea is a great institution, and have become very dependent upon it.”

“No wonder, after having had nothing but cold water to drink at luncheon. With no hot bread for breakfast, but only cold toast and the eternal bacon and eggs, and for dinner vegetable-marrow, cabbage and potatoes, I yearn for our American markets,” declared Gabriella. “We have our advantages at home, and there are some of the English customs I can never get used to. If I lived here a thousand years I would not set my dressing bureau with its back to a window, nor would I serve bacon and eggs for breakfast three hundred and sixty-five times a year. The back door garden and the afternoon tea go very well, but give me less grass and a country where you don’t have to grow all your tomatoes under glass; I am rather dependent upon tomatoes, you remember. I should like to borrow a cathedral or two, a couple of castles and some other antiques, but for the rest I shall be quite satisfied to exchange England for America.”

“You were not so wont to extol our new and raw country,” returned Sidney with a smile.

CHAPTER XVII
CONFESSIONS

Upon the board-walk of a quiet seaside resort Miss Cavendish and Sidney were briskly pacing. In front of them were Gabriella and the elder Miss Bailey in earnest conversation. There were few American tourists to be seen in this corner of Sussex and Sidney noticed that those who passed them by turned to look a second time upon Miss Cavendish’s tall figure in the well-fitting blue serge gown, and gave even more attention to the girl ahead with the big blue gray eyes and mass of gold brown hair, the details of her faultless costume betokening her an American. Miss Mildred had elected to remain in-doors, fearing an attack of neuralgia, for the weather was cool and the sea air penetrating. Miss Bailey, with the frugal mind of an Englishwoman, had initiated her friends into the mysteries of marketing and they were elate at the prospect of enjoying a carefully selected meal which would appeal to their American tastes as well as to the appetite which the keen salt wind would sharpen.

The stiff breeze loosened Sidney’s smoothly arranged locks and fluttered the veil around her hat. She was the neatest of persons, though she never bore the trig look which was one of Gabriella’s distinguishing features. “My hair is always limp and straight,” she was wont to complain. “If it had the lovely ripple that Gabriella’s has, or even the wave which makes Gem’s manageable, I could get along.” So now she was tucking back stray locks, which wisped across her face, and bemoaning the fact that what brought color to Gabriella’s face brought only freckles to hers.

“Gabriella looks ten per cent better already,” Miss Cavendish remarked. “We have been going too hard, I am afraid, and London did not agree with her.”

“I am not sure that it was only London,” returned Sidney.

“Nor I,” responded Miss Cavendish soberly.

Just here Gabriella turned around. “Miss Bailey and I are going back for tea,” she said. “Will you come with us?”

“Pray come,” urged Miss Bailey. But Miss Cavendish and Sidney declined, saying that they preferred the sands and would rather watch the children busy with their sand castles.

“Fancy!” exclaimed Miss Bailey, who would rather go without her dinner than her afternoon tea.

“Miss Ford said it would be ready for us, and we have some lovely plum cake,” Gabriella told her companion confidentially. “Do you think that if we were to stop for Miss Mildred she would come with us?”

“Oh dear, no,” returned Miss Bailey. “She has two or three friends in the same house and will take her tea with them, I am sure.”

They continued their walk to the unpretentious cottage where Miss Bailey had found lodgings for Miss Cavendish and her girls. The sitting-room looked cheerful and homelike. It had pots of blooming flowers in the windows and the table was spread for tea. A gay cosey covered the tea-pot and the thin slices of bread and butter supplemented by a loaf of plum cake made an enticing array. “I believe I am hungry,” said Gabriella, taking her place at the table.

“That’s a surprise to you, isn’t it?” said Miss Bailey, accepting the cup which Gabriella handed her.

“Rather, for I had so little appetite in London. Perhaps it is because I have been walking in the wind, or perhaps it is because it is so cosey to be pouring out tea at what is a home table for the time being.”

Miss Bailey sipped her tea thoughtfully. “Have you heard from Owen Morgan?” she asked suddenly.

Gabriella paled and set down her cup with trembling hand. “No,” she answered after a pause.

“Didn’t you expect to?” Miss Bailey viewed her with a little smile.

A second pause before the “No” was repeated.

“But, my dear, why not? I was sure, there in Paris, that all was going smoothly, and Mildred and I have talked of it constantly. We were so happy for Owen. Poor boy, he has missed his mother sadly, though I have tried to be a mother, and Milly a sister to him, so far as we could.”

The tears rushed to Gabriella’s eyes, and though she tried to wink them away, one stole from beneath her downcast lids, and before she could dash it away it was observed.

“Why, my dear,” there was tender concern in Miss Bailey’s tones, “have you quarrelled? Has anything happened to vex you?”

“No, we haven’t quarrelled,” Gabriella’s voice faltered, “but we—we have agreed not to see each other again.”

“Oh!” Miss Bailey finished her tea. “You are not eating anything after all, Gabriella; I may call you so, may I not? It is such a pretty name.”

“Oh, please, yes; I should like to have you.” She hastily consumed a slice of bread and butter in silence.

“Will you cut me a slice of the cake, please?” asked Miss Bailey.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” The girl gained her self-control. “I am a very awkward and thoughtless hostess. Have some tea, Miss Bailey. Please do, and won’t you take some jam?”

“I never take jam to my bread except at breakfast,” returned Miss Bailey, “but I should like the cake, please and a cup of tea.”

Gabriella gave her attention to the dear lady, but her own tea grew cold and she left her cake untasted.

Miss Bailey ate her slice to the last crumb with evident enjoyment. “It does make one hungry to walk in the salt air,” she remarked.

“Shall we go back then, and get up an appetite for our dinner?” said Gabriella, rising.

Miss Bailey put out a detaining hand. “Wait a minute, my dear, I want to talk to you. Please forgive me if I seem to be interfering with what may appear to be none of my concern, but I stand in place of Mr. Morgan’s mother; he is my godson, and whatever Mildred and I possess will be his when we are gone. His happiness is very dear to us. I tell you this, because I know how many charming Americans marry wealth, and, though I do not attribute mercenary motives to you, I thought perhaps a young man with nothing but his profession might seem ineligible to you who must have had many excellent offers. It is comfortable to have the assurance, sometimes, that one may expect to be outside poverty. As for character, you might search the world over, and not find a young man with better morals.”

“Oh, I know it, I know it,” murmured Gabriella, sinking down on the floor and burying her face in Miss Bailey’s purple satin lap.

“He is just such a young man,” Miss Bailey continued, “as I should like to have seen Mildred marry, but you know her story, perhaps. She was engaged to a young curate who died just as he was looking forward to an excellent living which would be vacant the coming spring, when they were to have been married.”

“Oh, no, I never heard that,” said Gabriella, lifting her face and remembering with compunctions her tart little speeches about Miss Mildred.

“As I was remarking,” Miss Bailey went on, hastily, “it is not money alone which brings happiness, though one would wish to be sure of comfort.”

“It isn’t I who am looking for money, who cares for riches; it is all on his side,” Gabriella’s words tumbled out eagerly yet confusedly. “It is all on his side,” she repeated. “I refused him because I believed he thought me an heiress and I thought he would never have been attracted to me unless he had thought I possessed a fortune. I haven’t a penny. I am as poor as a church mouse, and I would be a conceited, heartless idiot if I should make such an announcement as that I would marry only a wealthy man.”

“You’ll have to explain, you know,” said Miss Bailey. “I couldn’t understand unless you did, could I? Mr. Morgan never thought you were wealthy. He knew it was Miss Shaw who would inherit a fortune from her grandfather.”

“He knew?” Gabriella lifted an agitated face.

“Certainly.”

“Who told him?”

“I did. We met some Americans who had seen you in Florence and who recognized all of you.”

“Oh, dear!” Gabriella’s head again dropped. “Then I am more kinds of an idiot than I supposed,” she murmured. But gladness was tugging at her heart, and when Miss Bailey, with a timid and cautious gesture, laid her hand on the girl’s hair she caught it and rested her cheek against it.

“You will explain, won’t you?” repeated Miss Bailey. “Owen would never take you from your mother, you know, and would be perfectly willing to live in America if you preferred, though we have been hoping you could all be persuaded to make your home nearer us. We have talked it over many times, Mildred and I, and we thought since there were but the two of you it might not be difficult to arrange. Of late, however, we have been having such very depressed letters from our boy, and we knew something must have gone wrong. I told Mildred, that at the risk of being thought meddlesome, I meant to question you. You won’t be vexed with me, will you?”

“No, indeed, I will not, and I will try to explain as well as I can. What I have to tell is not very much to my credit, Miss Bailey, and perhaps after you have heard and realize what a silly goose I am, you will be glad that I decided not to see—not to see—your godson again.” Then she faltered forth her tale, which Miss Bailey interrupted once or twice with “Fancy!” or “Really!” but made no other comment. “So you see,” said Gabriella in conclusion, “it is quite impossible for him to believe in me again. Either he must think I deliberately tried to mislead him, in which case he must have no respect for me, or he must think me too silly to live.”

“But my dear, he thinks neither. He has laughed with us more than once at your little joke, and has said how well you carried it off. He understood the situation from the first.”

“And I have been going about saying the English had no sense of humor,” murmured Gabriella.

“I may be obtuse,” Miss Bailey went on to say, “and I may be pushing my interference further than I have a right, but if I do you must not be vexed because of my plain speaking, it is all because I cannot bear that the ocean should divide you two if you love each other.”

“Neither can I,” came in muffled tones from the enveloping folds of the purple satin. There was a sound of voices at the outer door. Gabriella sprang to her feet. “There comes Gem,” she exclaimed. “Dear Miss Bailey, oh, dear Miss Bailey, how I love you.” She leaned over and bestowed a rapturous kiss upon the good lady’s cheek, to the evident embarrassment of the recipient, who was unused to such spontaneity, though she found voice to say: “It is coming out as it should, my dear. Have patience,” before Miss Cavendish and Sidney entered the room.

“We changed our minds,” announced the latter. “It grew so cold that we had the shivers and the more we thought of a cup of hot tea the more alluring it seemed.”

“I am afraid it is cold, now,” said Gabriella, lifting off the cosey and examining the tea.

“Send out and have a fresh supply made,” suggested Miss Cavendish, and Gabriella obeyed.

“What have you been doing to my girl?” whispered Miss Cavendish to Miss Bailey, “she looks as if she had seen a vision.”

Miss Bailey smiled and over a third cup of tea she let Miss Cavendish into the secret of Gabriella’s altered looks.

From that hour both Miss Bailey and Miss Mildred seemed more than ordinary friends. Miss Mildred, more effusive than her sister, fluttered up to Gabriella that evening and clasped the girl’s hands in her bony, beringed ones, with such real cordiality that Gabriella, with a remembrance of former speeches, felt ashamed and responded by throwing her arms around Miss Mildred and kissing her warmly. There was another long and confidential talk with Miss Bailey while the Pierrots were singing their jocular songs on their stand by the board-walk. To Gabriella, whose thoughts were far away, “For I’se a little burgu-urgu-lar,” came but dully, but many times in after years there would arise before her the memory of a long stretch of sand, a beating sea, a row of Chinese lanterns swinging gaily, and the dancing Pierrots. She had put her trust in Miss Bailey and was content to wait results.

That evening she lingered in the sitting-room after Sidney had gone upstairs. Miss Cavendish sat by the table, the light of the lamp falling upon her expressive face and touching one or two glistening threads in her dark hair. There was an air of dignified repose, of controlled emotion about her that soothed Gabriella’s storm-tossed soul. She stood behind her and softly stroked the smooth cheek whose youthful outline had not disappeared. “Gem dear, you are very good to look upon,” she said.

Miss Cavendish drew down the slim little hand and kissed it. “Come around here, sweetness,” she said. “It is good to look upon a girl who has found her roses here by the sea. So the world is not a desert waste any longer, Gabriella?”

Gabriella seated herself upon the arm of the big chair. “No, there is a faint indication of a silver lining to my cloud, though I am not so dead certain but that it will break in thunders on my head yet. I don’t dare to be too happy, Gem.”

“Take all the happiness you can get, dear. The day may come when you will be glad you did.”

“But don’t you think I am very poor-spirited, that I am a weak, wishy-washy flabby animal to let Miss Bailey know I cared? Shouldn’t I have had more pride?”

“No, no,” Miss Cavendish spoke with emotion. “Pride has caused the downfall of many a hope; it has blotted out the plan of many a home; it has turned to ashes many a fire on the hearth. If it had not been for a matter of pride I might have been priestess of the fires in my own home to-day, Gabriella.”

“Tell me, dearest Isabella.”

“It was about ten years ago that I sent a letter which was never received. It gave my address in a city to which I was going and which was the home of the man I loved. At first I was angry, hurt, mortified because my letter was not answered, and, when, months after, I discovered that it had not reached its destination, instead of writing to explain, I told myself that if my friend had cared very much he would have found me anyhow. On his side it was argued that I did not care to see him again, that I had been only trifling with the man who had offered me his love. I learned these facts years after, when he had left that part of the country and when it was too late.”

“And that is why—”

“Why I am Isabella Cavendish? Yes. I am very content, however; I have many interests. But he was a good man, and I might have been first in some one’s life instead of always finding only second place at best.”

“Did he ever know?”

“I have no reason to believe he did. The friend who explained the mystery to me is long since dead, and the man to whom I gave a half promise one summer night has drifted out of my life.”

“But you may meet again. Perhaps it is not too late even now.”

“The world is wide, dear, and our ways are divided. I do not even know where he is, for he went to the far west before I lost all knowledge of him. I tell you this, to reassure you, to let you see how slight a thing may stand in the way of one’s truest joy. Let us not speak of this again. I have lived it down.”

Gabriella kissed her good-night and went thoughtfully to her room, feeling glad that she had let Miss Bailey have a glimpse of the heart whose troubles she had striven to hide.

For the rest of the week there were quietly happy times; afternoon tea over against the sand dunes when the glory of the western sky shot the little river with red and gold; long walks to rustic villages where gray Norman towered churches nestled in the midst of thatched cottages whose gardens were gay with blooms. Sometimes a tea garden would be discovered in one of these, and surrounded by a riot of flowers, the party of five or six would regale themselves upon tea and cakes. Again it would be a trip to see one of England’s finest castles, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel, where the swift Arun rushes by on its way to the sea, the castle overtopping the hill that sets a climb for those who, having reached the bridge, gaze admiringly at the old feudal stronghold perched above them.

“The town travels uphill all the way,” said Sidney, who, breathless, was first to gain the summit and look back upon the sparkling green-bordered river, the scattered farm-houses, the nearer bridge, and the distant towns.

“The castle itself is not open, you know,” said Miss Bailey, the next to arrive at the top, her English habit of walking adding to the sturdiness of her appearance as well as to the ease with which she was able to mount the hill. “But the park is quite free to visitors,” she added, “and it is most delightful.” And delightful indeed they found it. The great grey castle, the central pile of magnificence around which were the softer beauties of green sward and forest, lake and stream, serving as offsets to the massive walls which ended in “turrets old in story.”

“It is surely very impressive,” Miss Cavendish gave her verdict, “and its setting is beyond compare.”

“All those battlements and turrets and towers and fortifications make one hark back to the old knightly days,” said Sidney. “It must have had a great history.”

“It has shared in most of England’s important events,” Miss Bailey told her. “The Earls of Arundel were Norman barons, and naturally they were to the front in matters of difference with the king. It was besieged and surrendered to Henry I, endured a second siege from King Stephen, while the Cavaliers and Roundheads each struggled for its possession, and the Parliamentary troops left it in ruins.”

“I am glad when they restored it that they took care to leave some of the ruins so as to make it more interesting, a sort of hall-mark of antiquity, as it were,” said Gabriella. “We have an Anne Arundel County in our state of Maryland,” remarked she. “It was named for the wife of Caecilus Calvert.”

“Really?” Miss Bailey was interested.

“Maryland was a Roman Catholic settlement, though the freest of them all,” Gabriella went on, “and I believe the Dukes of Norfolk have always been Romanists.”

“Always, and the present duke is very zealous. He is at the head of the Roman Catholic party in England. It was he who gave the cathedral you can see through the trees. If we have time we can stop there on our way back.”

But they did not have time, for the delights of Swanbourne Lake, where the lone cry of a moor hen alone broke the silence, the deep solitude of the upper park, where hundreds of deer were feeding, the wonderful beauty of landscape on every side, so enchanted them that they lingered too long for anything further than a visit to the old parochial church shut out from the influence of a Roman Catholic domain by a high wall. It was found to be rich in stained glass and invited an interest only second to that of the castle itself. On their way through the town the party had glimpses of gable-roofed, Elizabethan houses, and caught sight through open doorways of interiors whose quaint old pieces of furniture were displayed against backgrounds of brilliant color where gardens smiled beyond the portals. They longed to linger, but the swift-flowing Arun called them to follow its course to the sea, and they returned with fine appetites for a supper of fried mullets caught fresh from the river.

This was their last excursion in Sussex, for the whole party returned the next day to London, where they parted company, the Baileys going on to visit friends in Derbyshire before they should go to their own home, and Miss Cavendish with her girls ready to start on their trip to Scotland and the English lakes.

CHAPTER XVIII
ST. GILES’S FAIR

There was a great gathering of townspeople and country people in the old town of Oxford. “What can be going on?” exclaimed Miss Cavendish, who, with her girls, was turning the corner by old St. Michael’s Church. She stopped to question a gaping countryman, who looked at her open-mouthed. What benighted being was this who could be upon the spot and not know about St. Giles’s Fair? But he gathered sufficient pity and understanding to tell them what they wanted to know.

“We must ask Mrs. Birch about it when we get back from market,” said Sidney. This attending to their own marketing was a great frolic, and one which added zest to their appetites when meal-time came. The market offered fresh country vegetables and fruit and was an attractive little place to the three who had come to regard bacon and eggs as a dish to be avoided when possible. Here they could select according to the taste of each and were always very content. Having completed this duty, they went back to their lodgings to give their orders and to gain information.

“Yes, ma’am, thank you, ma’am,” said their landlady. “I’ll do the mushrooms for your luncheons, and ’ow would you like your heggs, miss?”

“They’d be good scrambled, wouldn’t they?” suggested Sidney.

“You may scramble them, Mrs. Birch,” said Miss Cavendish. But the good woman looked mystified; she had never ’eard of scrambled heggs. “Stirred eggs,” suggested Miss Cavendish. But this method seemed no more familiar to Mrs. Birch than the other, there were further explanations and at last a gleam of intelligence flashed from Mrs. Birch’s eye. “Hit’s buttered heggs you mean, miss, thank you, miss.” And thereafter buttered eggs became a part of their bill of fare.

St. Giles’s Fair, they were told, was not what it had been; it was a noisy, foolish performance which Mrs. Birch doubted if the ladies would care to see, but if they should like a glimpse of it the evening would be the liveliest. Therefore they bided their time till night should fall, and meanwhile they occupied themselves with the treasures of the Bodleian Library, peeped in at Tom Quad, took a hasty view of the ivied walls of Pembroke and other colleges which they would examine more closely later on.

“I almost hate to leave our comfortable sitting-room,” said Sidney with a regretful look at the lighted lamp and the open piano. “I have been in no such homelike place since I left America.”

“We’ll have our homelike places all back again soon enough,” replied Gabriella, “but we shall not be able to see St. Giles’s Fair.”

Therefore they started out and elbowed their way through a throng of jostling men and women who had come a-fairing, and soon they found themselves in the very centre of the excitement. Side shows were everywhere, calliopes, street pianos, brazen horns, fairly deafened them; and the vendors of nostrums and novelties crying their wares added to the Babel of noise. For the rest, be it said, it was a quiet crowd. There was little boisterous merriment, no loud-voiced, piercing, nasal conversation. Indeed, it was ludicrously “unnoisy,” Gabriella said. “The English have a silent way of taking things, anyhow,” she remarked. “If a man gets angry with his wife, and chucks her out of the house, he growls something in an undertone, you hear a dull thud and that is all. One day in London I happened to hear two men who were having an altercation; you could see by their set faces that they were simply boiling mad inside, but all that I heard in the very lowest pitched, contemptuous tones was ‘You are a wehm,’ from one man, and the other one said in quite the same manner: ‘If I am a wehm, you are a loathsome wehm,’ and that was all of it; vituperation could go no further than to call a man a loathsome worm. Oh, do look, Gem.”

Miss Cavendish turned her head to see a quartette of girls with long wands in their hands; the wands were tipped with something fuzzy with which they touched the faces of such chance young man as took their fancy, and the swain returned the attention by flinging a handful of flour upon the damsel. In some cases when the little wand was too persistently used the young woman was caught and kissed, though, unlike an American girl upon such a provocation, she neither struggled nor shrieked, neither did she laugh loudly. Her friends might giggle softly, but the whole performance was so matter-of-fact, there was such a spirit of imperturbability evidenced that Sidney and Gabriella were amused beyond measure.

“It is the very funniest thing we have seen,” Sidney declared. “Imagine such a scene at one of our county fairs. Picture one of our American girls under similar circumstances and fancy her shrill laughter, her high-pitched protestations and all the rest of it. All the noise upon this occasion is made by those very unmusical instruments, and those clap-trappers.”

A short survey of the fair served them, and they returned to their lodgings, caring little for merry-go-rounds, Punch and Judy shows, jugglers and charlatans.

“I am afraid I am fickle,” announced Gabriella as they entered the cosey apartment. “I am beginning to feel myself false to Italy because I am realizing the delights of clean English lodgings. Fancy being able always to live in a beautiful old historic English town with green meadows and winding streams at your very door, and of having the comforts of home with no bother of servants; of being able to do your own marketing and of feeling sure that your food will be served and cooked perfectly and your rooms kept in exquisite order by a soft-voiced, respectable woman who never is supercilious nor condescending, but who, on the contrary, is humbly delighted that you favor her house with your presence. It is such an entirely new sensation that I am wondering if it isn’t the very idealest existence of any.”

“Shall you take out naturalization papers to-morrow?” asked Sidney.

“Not quite so soon; I haven’t seen Scotland yet.”

“Nor Wales.”

A vivid blush overspread Gabriella’s cheek. “Please spare a trembling maid,” she begged. “Have pity upon my condition of uncertainty and dread.”

Sidney laughed and picked up her shining brass candlestick, remarking that she had letters to write.

Oxford was left behind with reluctance. It was tantalizing not to be able to wander down Addison’s walk more than once, not to become more than half familiar with “the noblest old street in England,” nor to linger more leisurely in the sweet gardens and the dignified college halls. Yet, with passage taken for a settled sailing, time was pressing and there was still much which they felt they could not leave out of their trip. Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon held them for two or three days, then, as they journeyed on from Lincoln to York and Durham, their enthusiasm waxed warmer and warmer as the cathedral towns led them from glory to glory.

“I don’t believe either of the others can be finer than Lincoln,” declared Gabriella. “I have made my choice and nothing will budge me. Where will you find anything as beautiful as that Angel Choir, where anything as grotesque as that dear little imp? Where shall we see such a wonderful vaulting as that which springs from that single shaft in the Chapter House? And surely nothing can rival its site at the top of that mighty hill overlooking the Witham. I may appear obstinate to you after this, but Lincoln has my heart and I shall not give it to either York or Durham.”

York was reached that same night, for it was intended to make the most of time and to reach Durham early the next afternoon, take a hasty view of the cathedral and arrive in Edinburgh that same evening, it being Saturday.

“I have the address of a well recommended hotel,” said Miss Cavendish, fumbling in her bag for her address book. “We will go there. It is very near the station, I was told, so we can walk.” But though they wandered about for half an hour, the small hotel seemed to have lost itself utterly, for no trace of it could they discover and could find no one who knew it. At last they were directed to an inn which presented a very attractive exterior, fresh paint and a fine old doorway giving them the impression that here they would find ease and comfort. They inquired for rooms, and were told that though the house was rather full they could be accommodated. A shock-headed youth escorted them up the stairs, down a hallway and into a back room.

“Dear me,” Miss Cavendish looked at her companions, “I am afraid this will not do.”

The youth stood stolidly, open-mouthed and unresponsive, but a direct question brought the information that there was no other room to be had.

“It is too late to look elsewhere,” Miss Cavendish decided.

“But this is a feather bed,” said Gabriella; “we can never sleep on that this warm night.”

No amount of questioning seemed to bring any suggestion to the vacant brain of Boots. When he did venture upon the semblance of a sentence it was in such unintelligible Yorkshire dialect that he might as well have saved himself speech. At last Miss Cavendish inquired, “Is there a chambermaid?” There was. “Send her to me.” To their relief the chambermaid was a brisk capable body who took in the situation. It was true that there was no other room vacant. The town was quite full, and the hotels were pressed to their utmost capacity. The feather bed could be removed and placed underneath the mattress if the ladies wished. “Where’s that Boots?”

After some moments Boots reappeared, looking wholly scared, dense and stupid, but his arms were muscular if his tongue was rusty and it appeared to be little trouble to make such changes as should give the travellers a hope of a good night’s rest.

The breakfast was execrable and the price charged by an over pious text-quoting landlady was not modest. “Next time I arrive in York it will be daylight,” decided Miss Cavendish as they took their departure from the house.

“Yet,” returned Gabriella, “I wouldn’t have missed Boots for anything. He answers so perfectly to my ideal of a thick-headed Yorkshire bumpkin that I am satisfied to have met him under such circumstances rather than to have had him left out of my life. He is the most deliciously earth-born churl I have ever encountered. That shock head, that gaping mouth, those lustreless eyes, that vacant stare, when shall we ever meet their like again?”

“But there’s the Minster,” exclaimed Sidney as they approached the great cathedral after their tour of the old city walls. The grand proportions of the building impressed them all, the fantastic gargoyles especially pleased Gabriella. Sidney was delighted with the beautiful stained glass, Miss Cavendish was enthusiastic over the Chapter House. They had walked the length and breadth of the immense interior, had entered the crypt, and had examined many of the details of the cathedral’s beautiful interior by the time the hour of twelve warned them that they must soon leave.

“Stop,” whispered Sidney, “something is going to happen.” In the vast aisles a grave company was assembling. From the chancel wound a long procession of clergy and singers chanting a miserere which echoed through the vast transept toward which the procession was moving. Then through the door, from the bright September weather outside was borne a bier. That this was an occasion of more than usual solemnity the appearance of all indicated. This was the funeral of an esteemed member of the clergy. There were vested priests and choir boys, long-veiled deaconesses and members of guilds. The slow cortège proceeded up the church and with the echoing minor notes of the music in their ears the three Americans stepped out into the sunshine and life from which the old canon had just been borne.

“It was the climax,” whispered Sidney. “Wasn’t it wonderful to see that solemn procession, to hear that heart-breaking music in that most wonderful of cathedrals? You may have Lincoln, Gabriella, but for my part I am overpowered by the beauty of York.”

The train soon bore them to their next stopping-place, “Durham’s Gothic shade,” and here Miss Cavendish became eloquent and declared her allegiance given. “It is so splendidly and simply Norman. Look at those ponderous columns, that combination of mightiness and simplicity, and to think that here lie the bones of the Venerable Bede and of St. Cuthbert. Then its history. Think of the Prelate of Durham so splendidly placed in his fortress, really a sovereign who was rivalled by only one other, the Bishop of Ely on his island. Then there is that pretty legend of how the monks of Lindisfarne were led to the site by a dun cow. You may have your Lincoln imp, Gabriella, it just suits you, but give me the staid and historic dun cow. As soon as we get to Edinburgh I shall sally forth and buy a copy of Scott’s poems. You remember in ‘Marmion’ that it says:

“‘And after many wanderings past
He chose his lordly seat at last
Where his cathedral huge and vast,
Looks down upon the Wear.’”

“So this is the Wear,” said Sidney, “and a beautiful site it is indeed for a cathedral. I am almost tempted to grant that it satisfies me as well as York, yet it doesn’t quite.”

“How satisfactory it is for each of us to have a different cathedral,” said Gabriella; “it makes it much more interesting.”

“Gem must have a little mooly cow to match your imp,” said Sidney. And when they left the town a tiny silver effigy of Durham’s historic dun cow was hanging from Miss Cavendish’s lorgnette chain. To Gabriella Sidney had already presented the most grotesque imp that Lincoln could furnish, and for her own satisfaction she had a pile of photographs of York Minster.

They climbed the hill to the railway station, well pleased that they had not left out of their trip the three cathedral towns which had given them such delight. “I wish we could have seen other cathedrals,” Miss Cavendish remarked as they left Durham behind them.

“Oh, but consider how hopelessly mixed up we would be,” returned Gabriella. “Now each of us is entirely satisfied, for we have just one apiece; there is no dividing of our affections, no half-heartedness in the devotion each gives to her own. Possibly there may be others as fine as Lincoln, but I shall never know it, and I am happy.”

“I will venture to say that there is none with a more romantic history, nor which has such literary associations as Durham,” rejoined Miss Cavendish.

“And I don’t believe there is such stained glass in any of them as in York,” Sidney put in, and then they laughed and settled back in their places to look upon the fast-fading landscape. Along a cold but interesting coast their route lay for most of the journey. Once in a while they caught glimpses of a steely blue sea, of ships far out, of stretches of sandy beaches or green clad cliffs, and by nine o’clock they were in Edinburgh.

A genial old cabman landed them safely at their lodgings in a clean, comfortable house, from the window of which they could look over the roofs of houses to the castle which crowned the hill beyond.

“It is going to be fascinating; I feel it,” announced Gabriella, taking her first peep the next morning from her window. “The dear grey city is going to enthrall me. It is not so big but that we can take it in and become friendly with it and its castle. It is a good thing to have a castle as part of the view, for then you feel as if the city had not parted with its history; you feel that its links to the past have not been broken by the sledge-hammer of modernity.”

“Who is making fine speeches?” said Sidney, coming in at that moment. “We must hurry, mustn’t we? if we want to see the soldiers. We must be at St. Giles’s by nine, you know. Don’t stop to prink, Gabriella.”

“If there ever was an occasion that called for prinking it is when I am to attract the gaze of the Black Watch,” returned Gabriella.

“THEY WERE REWARDED BY SIGHT OF A COMPANY UNDER INSPECTION.”

“But they’ll get there before we do, if we don’t hurry, and we want to see them marching in.”

Owing to Gabriella’s prinking they were late and the Highlanders were in their places by the time the church was reached, so it was not till after the hearty singing of “Onward, Christian soldiers,” in which all joined, and the service was over that the girls had their chance of seeing swinging kilts and swaying bonnets all in line. “Aren’t they the loveliest ever?” whispered Gabriella as they stood on the pavement outside. “I’d like to take one home with me just to keep and look at. See that dickey little officer’s claymore; what a perfect beauty of a cairngorm he has.”

“We must follow them up to the castle,” declared Sidney, no less eager than Gabriella. “It is ever so long before it will be time to go to St. Cuthbert’s, and we’ve nothing else to do.” So up the hill they followed the swinging line to see the red coats and tartans disappear under the grey stone gateway. But they lingered to look down from the parapet upon the town and were rewarded by sight of a company under inspection.

“It is a picture, a perfect picture,” exclaimed Gabriella. “See that officer coming out from the castle, isn’t he fine? It is the same one who had that beauty cairngorm.”

“Yes, and he is quite aware that he is a thing of beauty himself,” remarked Miss Cavendish.

“Never mind, he is a joy forever, and if I could wear a tartan, carry a claymore, and have such a lovely swinging bonnet as that I’d be puffed up, too. I don’t blame him one bit. I am afraid, Gem, that I shall spend all the time we are here in running after the soldiers.”

“I never expected to be crazy over the military,” said Sidney, “but I must say I never saw anything so fascinating as this uniform, nor a finer set of men.”

“Come away, come away, you two,” laughed Miss Cavendish, “or you will lose your wits. It is time we were starting for church if we expect to hear ‘wee Jimmy McGregor’ preach to-day.” And with many a backward look they went down the hill to be set upon by a horde of street urchins who would fain show them the “Boby Burruns” house, but whom they smilingly passed by.

“You girls are not living up to your opportunities,” Miss Cavendish reproached her companions. “I don’t believe that you allowed either your eyes or your thoughts to wander for one moment from those soldiers. I don’t believe that you appreciated the fact that it was in St. Giles’s that Jenny Geddes threw her stool at Dean Hanna, nor that you were near the very site of the Heart of Midlothian when you came away. You were simply bent upon tagging soldiers and I couldn’t get at you.”

“We can hear about Jenny Geddes any time,” returned Gabriella, “but when again will we see Gordon’s Forty-second coming home from service?”

“In the graveyard of St. Cuthbert’s we shall find the graves of De Quincey and—”

“There goes one,” interrupted Sidney as she caught sight of a swaying kilt and a pair of bare knees on the other side of the street. And Miss Cavendish gave up in despair.

CHAPTER XIX
SKIRLING PIPES

It was at Holyrood that the two girls next evinced their mild madness for kilts and claymores. All morning they had been gathering up a new vocabulary, conversing excitedly of sporrans and philabegs and calling one another flickermahoy or tawpie until Miss Cavendish declared they were fairly daft. They had walked the length of the Old Canongate, had gazed upon John Knox’s house, had peeped into the filthy yet attractive second-hand shops which displayed treasures to the searcher for antiques, had looked upon the squalor and wretchedness of the city’s poor and had at last made a tour of inspection of ancient Holyrood to view the room where Rizzio was slain and the place where Mary, Queen of Scots laid her unhappy head.

It was in one of the rooms associated most intimately with Darnley that Miss Cavendish, turning to speak to her companions, saw them both racing toward the door. “Come on! Come on!” they cried and she followed. Down the stairs ran the girls as if all the ghosts of Holyrood were after them, nor did they stop even when they had passed through the gate into the street.

At last, breathless, Miss Cavendish caught up with them. “What is it?” she cried. “Where are you going?”

“Didn’t you see them? Don’t you hear them?” cried Gabriella, all excitement. “The soldiers, the pipes; they are drilling back there.”

“I caught sight of them from one of the windows,” gasped Sidney, “and we had to come. Oh dear, I am afraid we are too late.”

“Not too late to have our heart’s desire fulfilled. They are marching to the pipes and they will come this way. Oh, I am all of a shiver over it.” Gabriella’s glowing face bent forward in eager delight brought an answering gleam to the eye of more than one tall laddie as he marched by to the music of the pipes. The whole regiment was out, bonnets tossing, kilts moving in a rhythmic swing. Up the old Canongate they marched until only a gleam of steel, a touch of red, a twinkling back and forth of buskined legs could be perceived, and the skirling of the pipes had become a distant drone.

“Oh, wasn’t it splendid?” sighed Gabriella, brought back to a consciousness of herself. “I would rather have seen that than all of the rooms of stupid old Darnley and his ilk. We may go to the castle this afternoon, mayn’t we, Gem? Perhaps we may see another drill or parade or something.”

But no such blissful experience was afforded them, and they ended their day in one of the delightful book-shops where they bought little tartan-covered volumes of Burns and a quaint old edition of Scott’s poems. These they bore triumphantly home with them.

“Mrs. McTavish says we must not fail to see the great Forth bridge,” said Sidney the next morning.

“Then since we are having unusually good weather for Scotland, we may as well take advantage of it and go this afternoon,” returned Miss Cavendish. “As for the morning there is always plenty to occupy us if we do no more than walk up and down Prince’s street.”

“I adore Prince’s street,” remarked Gabriella, “and I adore Edinburgh. When I get tired of feasting my eyes on lovely tartans and cairngorms and all sorts of Scotchy things in the shop windows I can look across at the lovely gardens or up at the castle. Then one sees such a pleasant mixture of people, nice rosy-cheeked light-haired Scotch girls in tarns and golf capes, well dressed Americans, dear old Scotchmen in kilts, and last but not least, the delightful soldiers with their bare knees and their funny little caps.”

“Speaking of weather,” said Sidney, “although it is rather chilly here, who could ever have thought that either England or Scotland would furnish us with so much sunshine? I hope it will continue to the very end.”

It was cool and bracing down by the water when they reached North Queensferry where they gazed up at the monstrous structure which spanned the Firth of Forth. The little village itself was not important, but they wandered about for an hour, finding small matters to interest their vigilant eyes. They had planned to cross upon the ferry-boat and then ride home upon one of the brakes constantly running to Edinburgh.

“I suppose this must be the wharf where the ferry-boat comes in,” said Miss Cavendish when they had come to the landing.

“There are two nice looking girls over in that garden,” said Gabriella; “I will ask them.” She walked a little way up the road, and, looking over the garden wall, put her inquiries, coming back smiling. “They say that sometimes it comes in here and sometimes it goes to the other wharf,” was her report.

“But how are we to tell?” asked Miss Cavendish.

“There is no way; you simply have to watch and when you see that it is not coming here you must run for it.”

“And how far is the other wharf?”

“Oh, a quarter of a mile or so.”

“Will the boat wait?”

“A wee bitty.”

“But suppose we don’t get there in time.”

“Then that will be the fault of our legs; we couldn’t blame the boat, you know.”

“Did you ever!” exclaimed Sidney.

The ferry-boat was now leaving the other side, and the attention of the three, as well as that of the occupants of the garden was fixed upon the movements of the small steamer. For a time it seemed to be deliberately heading for them, but of a sudden, when it appeared certain that the wharf where they stood must be the one selected, it turned and swept on to the further one. “You’ll have to run,” called the girls in the garden, and the three took to their heels and travelled down the road at their best speed. There was a turn ahead of them and here the boat was lost to sight, but they presently saw it again; it had reached the wharf. Would it wait? It seemed a very long quarter of a mile, for they were still at some distance.

“My breath is almost gone,” gasped Miss Cavendish.

“I shall drop,” panted Sidney, falling in the rear. But Gabriella kept ahead, and presently a cyclist came dashing past. “I’ll tell them to wait for you,” he called back and the hindmost ones dropped into a walk while Gabriella stumbled on and finally was assisted, gasping and exhausted, upon the deck.

“There are two others,” she managed to utter the words, and in a few moments appeared Miss Cavendish and Sidney almost in a state of collapse.

But they had made their boat and the very effort gave an added value to their sight of the great bridge so far above them, and to the lovely drive back with Hopetoun House and Barnbougle Castle as distant landmarks.

“It is more than I ever dreamed of having, this glimpse of Scotland,” said Gabriella as they were packing their trunks that night, “but oh, Gem, how it does whet one’s appetite for more. I long for Oban and the skirling pipes, for the Highlands, the Trossachs and the lakes.”

“We shall take some of the lakes from Glasgow.”

“Let us pray for a pleasant day,” said Sidney.

“Of course we shall have a pleasant day,” replied Gabriella. “Haven’t we always had good weather for all the special things?”

“It was so lovely in Lucerne at the feast of Corpus Christi,” returned Sidney.

“But that was the only time we had it so dreadfully wet, and there has to be an exception to prove the rule.”

But alas, for Gabriella’s optimism, the day appointed for the lakes promised doubtfully enough in the early morning, though a sudden burst of sunshine just before the time of departure gave them courage to undertake the trip. For an hour or so there was no rain, but they had scarcely embarked before the clouds thickened and a drizzle set in. “It is real typical Scotch weather,” said Miss Cavendish; “we may as well accept it cheerfully.”

“But why,” said Sidney, gathering her golf cape around her and drawing her feet under her stool, “why, in all conscience, if this is the general condition of things, of all countries, must Scotland be the only one which does not provide a cover for the decks of her steamers? There is not a dry spot where we can creep except that stuffy cabin full of crying children.”

“I suppose simply because it is the general state of things no one minds it,” returned Miss Cavendish. “Everyone prepares for it, and they are disappointed if they don’t get wet.”

“Then we must continue to sit here with dripping umbrellas over our heads, golf capes over our knees and our heels in little puddles of water.”

“I am afraid that is the best we can do.”

“I shouldn’t mind the getting wet so much if we could only see the landscape,” said Gabriella. “If we must be uncomfortable we should at least get the benefit of what we came for.”

“You can have the satisfaction of enduring a real Scotch mist.”

“Which I am not at all enthusiastic about,” said Sidney.

“Perhaps it will clear at noon and the coaching part will make up for this part of the trip,” suggested Gabriella cheerfully.

But the drizzle was constant; the char-à-bancs was no better provided with a protecting cover than was the steamer, and the dripping umbrellas were in requisition the entire day. Yet there were suggestions of magnificent scenery once in a while when the clouds lifted and they could behold the rolling hills and the stretches of purple heath beyond the wooded shores of the lovely lake. “It must be beautiful beyond description,” sighed Sidney, “and it is too exasperating to feel that you are really here in the heart of this lovely scenery that we have read about and dreamed about and that this veil of mist hides everything.”

“And to think we have paid to get soaked and to see only a grey wall of mist,” said Gabriella chuckling, her sense of fun getting the best of the situation.

“We might stop off somewhere and try what to-morrow will do for us,” suggested Miss Cavendish, “though there is no surety that to-morrow will be any better.”

“Oh, no, we’d better go back and get dry,” said Sidney resignedly.

The journey ended at Glasgow and here letters awaited them. Among these was a glad and eager one from Gabriella’s mother, who counted the days till her child’s return. There was also one from Miss Bailey for Gabriella. She read it through, then thoughtfully folded it. “What do you think, Gem,” she said, “Miss Bailey asks me to come and make her a visit. Isn’t she kind?”

“Very. And should you like to go?”

“And desert you? Oh, no. She proposes that you sail without me, but with this dear letter from my patient little mother, whose longing pervades every line, with my passage taken and all that, I simply couldn’t.”

Miss Cavendish made no answer for a moment. “What else does she say?” she asked presently.

“She says she cannot bear that I should go back with wrong impressions, that she wants me very much, and that she and Miss Mildred will do all in their power to make me content and will see that I have a proper companion for the home voyage. But I shall not go to her, Gem, don’t think that, and please don’t take me to Wales.”

“I thought that was a place you felt you must see.”

“I did, but now I’d rather cuddle down with you and Sidney in some restful place for the little time that is left. You are tired out, although we have not travelled with such distractingly rapid rushes as some do, and I think we shall be in a better state for our ocean trip if we take things easy for the next two weeks.”

“Shouldn’t you like to go to Miss Bailey for that time? It would be a very pleasant experience to enjoy the hospitality of a real English home, and in that beautiful Devonshire, too.”

But Gabriella shook her head. “She has written to Mr. Morgan, she says, but has had no reply. I know what she thinks. She believes if I were to stay that perhaps she could arrange a meeting, that if he knew I were in England with her it might make a difference, but if he is so cautious, so deliberate that he must be urged, I would rather never see him again. I think now that what I want most in the whole world is my precious mother.”

“Dear child, it will not be long.”

“No, and I am glad. It has been a happy, happy six months, Gem, and I shall enjoy it all over again, for ‘Who can take from us what has been ours?’”

Miss Cavendish kissed her softly and drew her down by her. “We will go down to the Wordsworth country and spend our last two weeks. I have been going over the route with Sidney, and we could find no spot more restful and beneficial for our final enjoyment than the English lake country, I am sure.”

“Let’s find some little village, then; not one of the larger places.”

“That is what I intend to do. I am thinking of Grasmere or Ambleside.”

“Which is the smaller?”

“Grasmere, and it was Wordsworth’s home; there he is buried and there, too, lived De Quincey and Hartley Coleridge in Nab Cottage. The whole countryside is full of suggestion.”

“Then do let us go there; it sounds perfectly fascinating.”

“We’ll take a day or two for Keswick and the Derwentwater section and then go on by coach.”

“Charming. But won’t it be very expensive?”

“Not at all. I am still keeping within my thousand dollars, Gabriella, and have a good margin. Since we came to England our expenses, yours and mine, have been only about a hundred and fifty dollars, an average of about twelve dollars a week, and I am sure we have been comfortable, have travelled where we liked and have not stinted ourselves.”

“As usual I am lost in admiration of your ability as conductor. Then we are to start to-morrow for the lakes and after them comes Liverpool and home. I shall write to dear Miss Bailey that I cannot make her the visit, for across the ocean there is a little mother longing for the unworthy daughter who has spent half a year away from her.”

Sidney was awake as Gabriella entered her room. “Did you have good news, Rella?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so. And you, Sidney?”

“I had better news than usual, for some one will meet me at the steamer whom I shall be very glad to see.”

“Ah, I can guess; it is the writer of the thick letters.”

Sidney gave a swift amused look at Gabriella. “Yes, it is,” she said.

“Aha! I thought there was something in that. Are you open to congratulations, Miss Shaw?”

Sidney made no answer, but continued to look with an amused expression at Gabriella.

“Tell me, you wretched little clam,” Gabriella went on. “I have a mind to shake you.”

“When one has the dearest, most devoted mother in the world, I think she is to be very much congratulated.”

“Sidney, you are hedging.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Do you pretend that all your absorbing interest and your eagerness were given to your mother’s letters?”

“Yes, my romantic friend.”

“And not to a man? Is there no man at all in the case?”

“Yes, there are two; my brother and my grandfather.”

“Oh, pshaw! I don’t believe it.”

“Fact, my dear. I suppose you can’t conceive of such a thing as a girl of my age never having had a lover except our friend the Dutchman. I have been more grateful to him than I acknowledged, for he has added immensely to my self-respect. I never confessed this even to mamma, Rella, but I did hate to go through life without having had even one proposal.”

“As if any girl ever did. You are full young yet, and will probably have dozens before you get through.”

Sidney shook her head. “I’m not the kind that induces them, and I doubt if I ever have another, but I am mightily uplifted by having had just that one, and I am perfectly content to go back to my mother and live my life, for it will now be broidered with memories of this lovely trip.”

“It has been a lovely trip, hasn’t it? And we have come to know each other so well. I shall always think of you as one of my best friends. I hope we shall be comrades all our lives.”

“I hope so, too, Rella. You have been the life of this trip, and I shall always remember how much you added to my enjoyment of it.”

“That’s awfully sweet of you, Sidney. Do you know what the next part of the programme is?”

“Yes, Gem and I have been going over our Baedekers together, and I think we have planned a delightful time.”

“So do I; that doesn’t disappoint me in the least.”

“Does anything?”

“You do; I had counted on a romance coming out of those letters.”

Sidney laughed. “I am satisfied, and if there is any future romance I am willing to wait for it.”

“In your case the waiting will be easy,” said Gabriella as she blew out the candle.

At Keswick with its suggestions of Shelley and Southey, they entered the Lake District to take “the finest drive in the kingdom.” Buttermere Lake, Borrowdale, Howiston Hawse, and back again to lovely Keswick. An enthusiastic three they were who occupied the front seats of the coach, and whose spontaneous admiration of the beautiful district brought an appreciative smile to the face of the driver.

“Dear, dear,” exclaimed Gabriella, “I am getting back my Italian sensations and am realizing again the paucity of adjectives in the English language. Help me out, somebody. Aren’t those beeches beautiful? And look at the color on that dear little mountain, isn’t it enough to drive one wild? It is all such a perfect miniature section, the mountains and lakes and all are so little and yet so perfect. You feel such a sense of nearness while they are entirely satisfying. Now at home, if we want to climb a mountain, we can’t go out the back door after breakfast and get home in time for dinner; and if we want to cross one of our lakes we must wait for a steamboat. Here you simply drag out your row-boat from under the bushes and pull across, run up your mountain and turn round and come back again by supper time; it is so perfectly dear and friendly and satisfactory.”

“I simply adore the names they have for things about here,” declared Sidney. “It is so refreshing to get hold of tarns and gills, forces and becks for the watery places, and combes and hows, nabs and holmes for the dry ones. We must learn them all, Gabriella. Now what would that be over there?” she asked the driver.

“That’s Castle Crag, miss. Hit’s between ’Igh Fell and Great ’Ow.”

“Lovely!” exclaimed Sidney. “Do you hear that, Gem?”

“Yes, but I am trying to remember what it is that Wordsworth says about ‘Castrigg’s naked steep.’ We must read up Wordsworth, girls, when we get to Grasmere.”

“If I am disappointed in Grasmere it will be a dreadful shock,” said Gabriella. “The very name enchants me, and I have pictured just what it must be like. Since I have seen Keswick I can better believe that I shall find the realization of my dreams at Grasmere.”

She was not disappointed, for when the coach swept by the old Swan inn and down the road to the middle of the little village resting quietly upon the margin of its lovely lake encircled by mountains they all looked around in delight. “It is, it is all I have dreamed,” cried Gabriella. “Oh, Gem, it is as perfect as if it had been made to order. No inn, please, Miss Gem, but simple lodgings in some cottage; then we can enjoy every minute in the jewel of a place. I take off my hat to Wordsworth. Anyone with the good taste to select such a spot to live in I have the utmost respect for.”

They watched the coaches rattle off down the road and on to Ambleside, and then they turned their attention to the search for lodgings. It was so late in the season that these were not difficult to obtain, though it was not easy to find the ideal place, but at last it was discovered in a cottage which gave them a garden on one side and green fields on the other; the highroad and the lake seen through the trees were in front of them, and behind them, hurrying past the garden wall, was the river Rothay. Everything about the house was spotlessly clean, the landlady was the softest-voiced, gentlest of creatures, and they settled down for their two weeks’ stay with contented hearts.

“Are you perfectly satisfied, Gabriella?” asked Miss Cavendish.

“Satisfied?” echoed the girl, “I am more than that; I am happy.”

“And you would not rather be with Miss Bailey?”

A slight shadow crossed Gabriella’s face, but she answered, “No, this is Heartsease Cottage, Gem.”

CHAPTER XX
THE OTHER GENTLEMAN

Miss Cavendish sat in a large easy chair pouring over a volume of Wordsworth. Her fine profile was outlined against the green of growing plants in the window and the long lines of her graceful figure were distinctly picturesque in the pose she had taken. Gabriella was at the table, her pen flying across her sheet of writing paper. It was raining dismally, but Sidney had gone to the post-office. Presently a gentle voice at the open door said: “I beg your pardon, miss, but the other gentleman thought he would like a suet pudding to-day. Would you ladies care to ’ave one, too?”

“It sounds rather comfortable on this wet cool day,” said Gabriella in response to Miss Cavendish’s questioning look. “If the ‘other gentleman’ thinks it is the thing, why shouldn’t we have it?”

“Very well, we’ll have suet pudding, Mrs. Graves,” said Miss Cavendish returning to her book.

“The other gentleman” was a mystery. He was the only other lodger in the house, and had been seen but on two occasions: once Gabriella had encountered him upon the stairs; once Sidney had met him as he was coming in the front door. Miss Cavendish had never seen him and neither of the three knew his name. Mrs. Graves never referred to him except as “the other gentleman,” to the great amusement of the girls. That he was a scholarly person engrossed in his books was about the only thing they had learned about him. He always managed to leave the house after his fellow lodgers had gone out, and came in before they did, not a very difficult thing to do since they spent most of their time out-of-doors, for Grasmere afforded an endless variety of delightful walks, rendered the more interesting by their association with the Wordsworths.

“Isn’t she a dear?” said Gabriella when Mrs. Graves had softly closed the door. “I’d like to take ’er ’ome with me. Isn’t it perfectly lovely the way she always says ‘the other gentleman?’”

“I am quite curious to see that individual,” remarked Miss Cavendish. “What does he look like, Gabriella?”

“Oh, he’s rather nondescript, neither old nor young; not very tall, not very short; wears glasses, stoops a little; has a good, kind face I think, but hasn’t a particle of curiosity, as I well realize. He wears a disreputable old rain-streaked overcoat and a cap. To my mind he looks as if he needed a wife.”

Miss Cavendish laughed. “I fancy he is some old Oxford professor, who has no thought above dry-as-dust books and parchments.”

“He looks it,” returned Gabriella. “I’m afraid it is going to be too wet for that climb up Helm Crag, although the clouds are breaking a little over Silver How, but, even if it does clear, it will be slippy for climbing.”

“Perhaps it will not be too wet for Loughrigg Terrace, or at all events for Rydal Water by the lower road.”

“Radical Reform you mean. I do like Dr. Arnold’s facetious names for the three roads. Yes, we might go to Rydal even in the rain. Rydal Water is lovely under any circumstances; it is even just a little bit lovelier than Grasmere, though I acknowledge it grudgingly.”

By noon the sun was shining. “In the woodsy roads we may find it damp,” said Miss Cavendish, “though I, for one, shall not be afraid to try the Borrowdale road, turning off before you come to the place where we climb Helm Crag. There is a little white farmhouse somewhere along there where we may be able to get tea.”

They took their way through the pretty green village with its scattered houses surrounded by gardens, past the old church and up the Easedale road over which “the lion and the lamb” and “the ancient woman beside her rifted cell” keep watch from the heights of Helm Crag. Verdant pastures stretched to their right, and through these the babbling little Easedale beck chattered “over stony ways in little sharps and trebles,” while beyond the hills arose in purple and orange splendor, for the bracken had already turned to a gorgeous yellow and showed in patches upon the mountain-side. Once in a while, from some rocky platform above them, the plaintive bleat of a mountain sheep came to their ears. The wild birds flew around the lonely heights with strange cries. The rain had washed everything clean, but the excellent road showed little effect of the showers except that there was no dust.

Miss Cavendish carried a small red book which she had bought the day before. Once in a while she referred to it, and when they sat down upon one of the benches provided for the wayfarer, she would read snatches aloud.

Their walk finally brought them to the white cottage set in a garden where masses of late blossoms showed freshly fair after the rain. They were ushered into a low raftered room which delighted Gabriella’s artistic soul, and here they were served fragrant tea with thick cream, thin slices of bread and butter, home-made jam and plum cake.

“Isn’t it all perfectly delicious?” exclaimed Gabriella. “I’d like to transport the whole place to America; those lovely old beams darkened by time, this quaint table, that row of shining brass candlesticks and the little maid herself. Fancy making such a discovery at home. Who could drop into a casual farmhouse and be served all this so daintily, so exquisitely, and pay only sixpence for it?”

“Gabriella, it is well that you are soon going home or you would become an Anglomaniac,” declared Miss Cavendish.

“I am afraid I should.”

“Yes, I notice that you vaunt your country less than you did in Paris,” said Sidney, “though seriously, this tea is remarkably good with the fresh cream.”

“So is the bread and butter.”

“So is the plum cake, and also, so are our appetites,” this last from Gabriella who helped herself to a second slice of cake.

They left the low-ceiled cottage, refreshed, and passed out between rows of scarlet and gold blossoms, then took the road again. Half way home they saw some one coming toward them, the visor of his cap pulled down over his eyes, and his attention riveted on the book he was striving to read as he stumbled along. “It’s ‘the other gentleman,’” whispered Gabriella, nudging Miss Cavendish. The man passed on, but as Gabriella turned to speak to her companion she saw that she was deadly pale, and that she had dropped down upon a rock beside the way. “Gem dear, are you ill? Have you sprained your ankle? What is the matter?” asked the girl in alarm.

“It is John Price,” answered Miss Cavendish faintly.

Gabriella looked back to where Sidney was gathering a few late wild flowers. The man’s figure was disappearing around a bend in the road. Gabriella sat down by her friend’s side and put her arm around her. “Oh, Gem,” she whispered, “did it mean anything to you after all these years?”

“It was a surprise; that was all,” returned Miss Cavendish, regaining her composure and rising to her feet. She walked on and Gabriella waited for Sidney, the two overtaking Miss Cavendish a little further ahead. She smiled as she saw them approaching. “I had a scare, Sidney. Did Gabriella tell you that I saw a ghost?” she said lightly. “I think now that perhaps I was mistaken. Ten years may make a great difference in one’s looks and I may have forgotten. It does not seem possible that I should meet one whom I once knew so well in this quiet little corner of the world. Resemblances are sometimes startling and I am convinced that I was mistaken. Come, shall we go over Butterlip How and across by the Swan inn? It will take us home by another way.”

They continued their walk, crossing Goody Bridge and turning aside before they reached the town. But when they came again to the highroad they met “the other gentleman” a second time face to face. This time the book was in his pocket. He looked up. The expression of indifference upon his face grew into one of surprise, then to one of pleasure. He sprang forward and held out his hand. “Isabel Cavendish! Isabel, it can’t be you,” he exclaimed.

“It is I, John,” she answered simply.

“And these are?” he turned to the girls.

“My two goddaughters who are travelling with me.” She presented them. The girls meekly fell behind while the older two walked on.

“Isn’t it a coincidence?” said Gabriella. “Do you suppose anything will happen, Sid?”

“What could happen?”

“The same thing that might come about if you were not to see your girlhood’s lover for ten years and were to meet him just here.”

“Dear me.”

“I confess to feeling absurdly jealous. I am in a rage,” declared Gabriella. “Oh, you old blundering nose-in-a-book, she is far too good for the likes of you. I hope your suet pudding will choke you.” She shook her fist at the back of Mr. Price’s weather-stained coat.

“There’s no getting away from him, you see,” said Sidney, “for he lives just across the hallway and can’t stay at home on account of the weather.”

“If he has any sort of consideration for us he will move right away.”

This Mr. Price did not do, but from this time on he was no longer “the other gentleman” to them, for his books were neglected, his old coat was disdained. He appeared in a bran-new mackintosh on rainy days, and on sunny ones in as correct a costume as even Gabriella’s fastidious eyes could approve. He climbed the hills with them to little Easedale tarn where they had tea in a tiny lonely hut. He had them for a drive to Ambleside, a sail on Lake Windermere. He helped them uphill and followed them down dale for the week longer that they remained under Mrs. Graves’s roof, and while the girls grew to like him better and better “the light that never was on land or sea” added a new beauty to the face of Isabel Cavendish.

“And I suppose,” said Gabriella ruefully to her godmother, “you will be wearing that lace bertha before long.”

“We must make up for lost time, dearie. He has waited for me for ten long years,” returned Miss Cavendish quietly. And Gabriella, who was experiencing some of the pangs of “hope deferred,” threw her arms around her friend and hugged her close.

“But as I am never going to marry,” she said, “all my plans are nipped in the bud. I was going to have it that you and mamma and I would live together for the rest of our days in some sweet little countrylike place which we could make as English as possible.”

“It is what we shall do, Rella, and you shall spend weeks with me.”

“Not when there is a horrid man who will carry you off for dry discussions about things I can’t possibly understand. If he were a business man one could hope not to see too much of him, but a professor, and of Greek at that. No, Gem, much as I love you I cannot feel happy at the prospect.” Then seeing that Miss Cavendish looked a trifle hurt she called herself a beast and declared that John Price was the very nicest man in the world and that she had but one objection to him, and that was that he had superseded her small self in Miss Cavendish’s affections, a statement which Miss Cavendish denied, saying that each had a select and distinct place, after which Gabriella went to talk with Sidney about their bridesmaid frocks.

Mr. Price would need to take an earlier sailing than the others, as his college demanded his presence by the first of October, so the three lingered a few days longer in the sweet vale of Grasmere to take a last cup of tea at the white cottage, to walk once more over Loughrigg Terrace, to make one more round of Grasmere lake and Rydal Water. Then, one October morning, when the mists were rolling down from Helm Crag and Silver How, they bade adieu to the spot where they had all been very happy, and where had come to Isabella Cavendish the crowning joy of her journey.

“You have had heartache all these years and now you are perfectly happy,” said Gabriella wistfully, “but I am putting the ocean between me and my hope.”

“So I thought I had done, and I have not had heartache all these years, dear child. My life has been very full, and you, sweetheart, have helped to fill it. Will you stay over, Gabriella? It is not too late. Miss Bailey said that if you should change your mind at the last moment you had but to let her know.”

But Gabriella shook her head. “I couldn’t disappoint my mother, and it is too late anyhow.”

Yet there was a glad look in the eyes of all three as they turned their faces toward Liverpool. Soon the ocean would no longer roll between those whom they had left behind, and who so ardently longed to see them. Only Miss Cavendish looked back as one who is not saying a long farewell. “We shall come over again next year,” she murmured, and Gabriella knew that the pronoun did not include her. She gazed wistfully out the window as lake and mountain and green pastures faded from their sight, and the lovely lake district gave place to chimneyed factories and smoky towns on the way to Liverpool.

Another day saw them on the deck of a huge ocean steamer. They idly watched till the last trunk was on board, till the hoarse whistle announced the fact that the hour for departure had come, then they turned away and went to look for steamer letters. In consequence of this they were too late to see a young man rush up the gangway at the very last moment. In one hand he carried a suit case and in the other a great bunch of roses. He was barely in time; another minute and the great paddle wheels began to turn. They were off.

Gabriella in her stateroom, with a little catch at her heart, was reading Miss Bailey’s farewell letter. “We are looking every day for Mr. Morgan,” she wrote. “He has been to some out-of-the-way place in Germany, but is coming back to England, and you, too, my dear, will some day come back to us, I am sure.”

There was a tap at the door of the adjoining room and presently Gabriella looked up to see Sidney holding out a bunch of saffron-colored roses and a letter. “The steward just brought these,” she said. “Oh, Rella, they remind me of Italy. Who could have sent them?”

Gabriella buried her hot face in the cool fragrant flowers, and then she took the letter. She gave a half startled look at Sidney before she read: “I have just learned from my dear old friends that you are to sail to-morrow. I have learned other things, too, which give me courage to try to reach Liverpool in time for your steamer. If I may cross the ocean and ask your mother for the dearest girl in the world, will you wear one of these roses down to dinner? But if my presence will trouble you, and you would rather that we should not meet, do not wear the rose, and I will leave the steamer at Queenstown.”

The notes of the bugle call for dinner sounded along the corridor. Gabriella drew from the roses in her lap one perfect bud, which she pinned to her gown. Then she turned and held out a hand to each of her two comrades. “Come,” she said. “He is here, and I, too, shall come back some day.”

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

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Table of Contents

- A Journey of Joy
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- CHAPTER I OUR WAY ACROSS THE SEA
- CHAPTER II “UNDER THE WALLS OF PARADISE”
- CHAPTER III IN HONOR OF A QUEEN
- CHAPTER IV THE BRITON
- CHAPTER V ROMANCES
- CHAPTER VI ROSES
- CHAPTER VII “IN A GONDOLA”
- CHAPTER VIII FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN
- CHAPTER IX BELLS
- CHAPTER X “CHIEFLESS CASTLES”
- CHAPTER XI THREE HUNDRED WINDMILLS
- CHAPTER XII A TEMPEST IN AN INK-BOTTLE
- CHAPTER XIII “HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN A RUSSIAN”
- CHAPTER XIV WHITHER? TOGETHER
- CHAPTER XV A MEDIÆVAL TOWN
- CHAPTER XVI A GOOD CROSSING
- CHAPTER XVII CONFESSIONS
- CHAPTER XVIII ST. GILES’S FAIR
- CHAPTER XIX SKIRLING PIPES
- CHAPTER XX THE OTHER GENTLEMAN
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE