Happily the fatigue did no permanent harm, and a day or two of rest made her all right again.
By good fortune, a nice little apartment in the modern quarter of the city had been vacated by its winter occupants the very day of their arrival, and Mrs. Ashe secured it for a month, with all its conveniences and advantages, including a maid named Maria, who had been servant to the just departed tenants.
Maria was a very tall woman, at least six feet two, and had a splendid contralto voice, which she occasionally exercised while busy over her pots and pans.
It was so remarkable to hear these grand arias and recitatives proceeding from a kitchen some eight feet square, that Katy was at great pains to satisfy her curiosity about it.
By aid of the dictionary and much persistent questioning, she made out that Maria in her youth had received a partial training for the opera; but in the end it was decided that she was too big and heavy for the stage, and the poor "giantess," as Amy named her, had been forced to abandon her career, and gradually had sunk to the position of a maid-of-all-work.
Katy suspected that heaviness of mind as well as of body must have stood in her way; for Maria, though a good-natured giantess, was by no means quick of intelligence.
"I do think that the manner in which people over here can make homes for themselves at five minutes' notice is perfectly delightful," cried Katy, at the end of their first day's housekeeping.
"I wish we could do the same in America.
How cosy it looks here already!"
It was indeed cosy.
Their new domain consisted of a parlor in a corner, furnished in bright yellow brocade, with windows to south and west; a nice little dining-room; three bedrooms, with dimity-curtained beds; a square entrance hall, lighted at night by a tall slender brass lamp whose double wicks were fed with olive oil; and the aforesaid tiny kitchen, behind which was a sleeping cubby, quite too small to be a good fit for the giantess.
The rooms were full of conveniences,—easy-chairs, sofas, plenty of bureaus and dressing-tables, and corner fireplaces like Franklin stoves, in which odd little fires burned on cool days, made of pine cones, cakes of pressed sawdust exactly like Boston brown bread cut into slices, and a few sticks of wood thriftily adjusted, for fuel is worth its weight in gold in Florence.
Katy's was the smallest of the bedrooms, but she liked it best of all for the reason that its one big window opened on an iron balcony over which grew a Banksia rose-vine with a stem as thick as her wrist.
It was covered just now with masses of tiny white blossoms, whose fragrance was inexpressibly delicious and made every breath drawn in their neighborhood a delight.
The sun streamed in on all sides of the little apartment, which filled a narrowing angle at the union of three streets; and from one window and another, glimpses could be caught of the distant heights about the city,—San Miniato in one direction, Bellosguardo in another, and for the third the long olive-hung ascent of Fiesole, crowned by its gray cathedral towers.
It was astonishing how easily everything fell into train about the little establishment.
Every morning at six the English baker left two small sweet brown loaves and a dozen rolls at the door.
Then followed the dairyman with a supply of tiny leaf-shaped pats of freshly churned butter, a big flask of milk, and two small bottles of thick cream, with a twist of vine leaf in each by way of a cork.
Next came a contadino with a flask of red Chianti wine, a film of oil floating on top to keep it sweet.
People in Florence must drink wine, whether they like it or not, because the lime-impregnated water is unsafe for use without some admixture.
Dinner came from a trattoria, in a tin box, with a pan of coals inside to keep it warm, which box was carried on a man's head.
It was furnished at a fixed price per day,—a soup, two dishes of meat, two vegetables, and a sweet dish; and the supply was so generous as always to leave something toward next day's luncheon.
Salad, fruit, and fresh eggs Maria bought for them in the old market.
From the confectioners came loaves of pane santo, a sort of light cake made with arrowroot instead of flour; and sometimes, by way of treat, a square of pan forte da Siena, compounded of honey, almonds, and chocolate,—a mixture as pernicious as it is delicious, and which might take a medal anywhere for the sure production of nightmares.
Amy soon learned to know the shops from which these delicacies came.
She had her favorites, too, among the strolling merchants who sold oranges and those little sweet native figs, dried in the sun without sugar, which are among the specialties of Florence.
They, in their turn, learned to know her and to watch for the appearance of her little capped head and Mabel's blond wig at the window, lingering about till she came, and advertising their wares with musical modulations, so appealing that Amy was always running to Katy, who acted as housekeeper, to beg her to please buy this or that, "because it is my old man, and he wants me to so much."
"But, chicken, we have plenty of figs for to-day."
"No matter; get some more, please do.
I'll eat them all; really, I will."
And Amy was as good as her word.
Her convalescent appetite was something prodigious.
There was another branch of shopping in which they all took equal delight.
The beauty and the cheapness of the Florence flowers are a continual surprise to a stranger.
Every morning after breakfast an old man came creaking up the two long flights of stairs which led to Mrs. Ashe's apartment, tapped at the door, and as soon as it opened, inserted a shabby elbow and a large flat basket full of flowers.
Such flowers!
Great masses of scarlet and cream-colored tulips, and white and gold narcissus, knots of roses of all shades, carnations, heavy-headed trails of wistaria, wild hyacinths, violets, deep crimson and orange ranunculus, giglios, or wild irises,—the Florence emblem, so deeply purple as to be almost black,—anemones, spring-beauties, faintly tinted wood-blooms tied in large loose nosegays, ivy, fruit blossoms,—everything that can be thought of that is fair and sweet.
These enticing wares the old man would tip out on the table.
Mrs. Ashe and Katy would select what they wanted, and then the process of bargaining would begin, without which no sale is complete in Italy.
The old man would name an enormous price, five times as much as he hoped to get.
Katy would offer a very small one, considerably less than she expected to give.
The old man would dance with dismay, wring his hands, assure them that he should die of hunger and all his family with him if he took less than the price named; he would then come down half a franc in his demand.
So it would go on for five minutes, ten, sometimes for a quarter of an hour, the old man's price gradually descending, and Katy's terms very slowly going up, a cent or two at a time.
Next the giantess would mingle with the fray.
She would bounce out of her kitchen, berate the flower-vender, snatch up his flowers, declare that they smelt badly, fling them down again, pouring out all the while a voluble tirade of reproaches and revilings, and looking so enormous in her excitement that Katy wondered that the old man dared to answer her at all.
Finally, there would be a sudden lull.
The old man would shrug his shoulders, and remarking that he and his wife and his aged grandmother must go without bread that day since it was the Signora's will, take the money offered and depart, leaving such a mass of flowers behind him that Katy would begin to think that they had paid an unfair price for them and to feel a little rueful, till she observed that the old man was absolutely dancing downstairs with rapture over the good bargain he had made, and that Maria was black with indignation over the extravagance of her ladies!
"The Americani are a nation of spend-thrifts," she would mutter to herself, as she quickened the charcoal in her droll little range by fanning it with a palm-leaf fan; "they squander money like water.
Well, all the better for us Italians!" with a shrug of her shoulders.
"But, Maria, it was only sixteen cents that we paid, and look at those flowers!