She is quite unmanageable, and snubs Lilly continually in a polite way, which makes me fidgety for fear Lilly will be offended, but she never seems to notice it.
Cousin Olivia looks very handsome and gorgeous.
She quite takes the color out of the little Russian Countess who sits next to her, and who is as dowdy and meek as if she came from Akron or Binghampton, or any other place where countesses are unknown.
Then there are two charming, well-bred young Austrians.
The one who sits nearest to me is a 'Candidat' for a Doctorate of Laws, and speaks eight languages well.
He has only studied English for the past six weeks, but has made wonderful progress.
I wish my French were half as good as his English is already.
"There is a very gossiping young woman on the story beneath ours, whom I meet sometimes in the garden, and from her I hear all manner of romantic tales about people in the house.
One little French girl is dying of consumption and a broken heart, because of a quarrel with her lover, who is a courier; and the padrona, who is young and pretty, and has only been married a few months to our elderly landlord, has a story also.
I forget some of the details; but there was a stern parent and an admirer, and a cup of cold poison, and now she says she wishes she were dying of consumption like poor Alphonsine.
For all that, she looks quite fat and rosy, and I often see her in her best gown with a great deal of Roman scarf and mosaic jewelry, stationed in the doorway, 'making the Pension look attractive to the passers-by.'
So she has a sense of duty, though she is unhappy.
"Amy has buried all her pebbles, and says she is tired of playing fairy.
She is now sitting with her head on my shoulder, and professedly studying her French verb for to-morrow, but in reality, I am sorry to say, she is conversing with me about be-headings,—a subject which, since her visit to the Tower, has exercised a horrible fascination over her mind.
'Do people die right away?' she asks.
'Don't they feel one minute, and doesn't it feel awfully?'
There is a good deal of blood, she supposes, because there was so much straw laid about the block in the picture of Lady Jane Gray's execution, which enlivened our walls in Paris.
On the whole, I am rather glad that a fat little white dog has come waddling down the beach and taken off her attention.
"Speaking of Paris seems to renew the sense of fog which we had there.
Oh, how enchanting sunshine is after weeks of gloom!
I shall never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first,—all blue, and such a lovely color.
There ought, according to Morse's Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we were, but I didn't see any.
Perhaps they letter it so far out from shore that only people in boats notice it.
"Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these warm afternoons begins to be felt.
Amy has received a message written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect—"
Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel behind her.
"Good afternoon," said a voice.
"Polly has sent me to fetch you and Amy in.
She says it is growing cool."
"We were just coming," said Katy, beginning to put away her papers.
Ned Worthington sat down on the cloak beside her.
The distance was now steel gray against the sky; then came a stripe of violet, and then a broad sheet of the vivid iridescent blue which one sees on the necks of peacocks, which again melted into the long line of flashing surf.
"See that gull," he said, "how it drops plumb into the sea, as if bound to go through to China!"
"Mrs. Hawthorne calls skylarks 'little raptures,'" replied Katy. "Sea-gulls seem to me like grown-up raptures."
"Are you going?" said Lieutenant Worthington in a tone of surprise, as she rose.
"Didn't you say that Polly wanted us to come in?"
"Why, yes; but it seems too good to leave, doesn't it?
Oh, by the way, Miss Carr, I came across a man to-day and ordered your greens.
They will be sent on Christmas Eve.
Is that right?"
"Quite right, and we are ever so much obliged to you."
She turned for a last look at the sea, and, unseen by Ned Worthington, formed her lips into a "good-night."
Katy had made great friends with the Mediterranean.
The promised "greens" appeared on the afternoon before Christmas Day, in the shape of an enormous fagot of laurel and laurestinus and holly and box; orange and lemon boughs with ripe fruit hanging from them, thick ivy tendrils whole yards long, arbutus, pepper tree, and great branches of acacia, covered with feathery yellow bloom.
The man apologized for bringing so little.
The gentleman had ordered two francs worth, he said, but this was all he could carry; he would fetch some more if the young lady wished!
But Katy, exclaiming with delight over her wealth, wished no more; so the man departed, and the three friends proceeded to turn the little salon into a fairy bower.
Every photograph and picture was wreathed in ivy, long garlands hung on either side the windows, and the chimney-piece and door-frames became clustering banks of leaf and blossom.
A great box of flowers had come with the greens, and bowls of fresh roses and heliotrope and carnations were set everywhere; violets and primroses, gold-hearted brown auriculas, spikes of veronica, all the zones and all the seasons, combining to make the Christmas-tide sweet, and to turn winter topsy-turvy in the little parlor.
Mabel and Mary Matilda, with their two doll visitors, sat gravely round the table, in the laps of their little mistresses; and Katy, putting on an apron and an improvised cap, and speaking Irish very fast, served them with a repast of rolls and cocoa, raspberry jam, and delicious little almond cakes.