The Four Corners Abroad

"No, of course not, but the old glory has passed. Yet, how beautiful it still is here."

"It is beautiful under any circumstances, and what a history the place has had. With how many different nations has Venice been connected, and what changes she has seen!"

"When was she at the height of her glory?"

"In the fifteenth century, and a great republic she was then, but her magnificence began to wane in the sixteenth century. She has since twice belonged to Austria, has belonged to Italy, has been a republic, and at last was again united to Italy."

"I don't like to think of her as anything but Italian."

"She has had many Oriental influences which are still very evident and make her different from other Italian cities. She used to be the centre where the traffic of both the East and West met and under her Doges held many Eastern possessions. We must get some books, Nan, and read up so you will become better acquainted with the past of the queen of the Adriatic."

"Indeed, I do want to do that. I should love to have seen that ceremony of wedding her to the sea."

"We live in too late an age for all the old romances and poetry except what still lingers through association and imagination. So quiet, Jo? It isn't like you not to have a word to say."

"I'm listening, Miss Helen, and am having such a good time that I am hugging myself for want of a better way to express my delight. I do love all this so much better than I expected to. I'm afraid I hadn't given much thought to the places over here till I actually came. They were names that I ticked off something like this: Paris – gay streets and shops; good place to get smart clothes. London – fogs, omnibuses, Dickens' stories; Munich – beer, picture-galleries. Venice – gondolas; all water."

Miss Helen laughed. "That is the way those places appear in the minds of a good many persons, I'm afraid. You are glad you came, Jo, aren't you? I remember Nan said you were not very enthusiastic at first."

"You bet I'm glad." Jo spoke with more force than elegance. "I could bat my head against the wall when I think of what a goose I was about coming. What an ignoramus I was not to study up more before I came. Nan enjoys things and gets so excited over them lots of times when I don't know what in the world she is driving at. Then by the time I have learned a little history and stuff it is time to leave, and there is not any chance for my enthusiasm to break out. I can't imagine how Daniella kept up with her party. You all are way ahead of me when it comes to literature and pictures and things, and what must she have been?"

"At least she got a taste of the sweets," said Miss Helen, "and I have not a doubt but that it will awaken her ambition as nothing else could do."

"She always had plenty of ambition," said Nan, "but she knew scarcely anything of what was outside a very small world."

"And the way she will work to keep up with her new self will be a caution," said Jo. "Dear me," she sighed, "there's the trouble; when you don't know and haven't seen you feel twice as complacent. You have a few rather nice ideas and some little knowledge, Jo Keyes, I patted myself on the head and said, but now, gracious! I feel as if I didn't know as much as one of the San Marco pigeons."

"So much the better," Miss Helen told her. "There is nothing so hopeless as self-complacency. You will forge ahead now, Jo, with twice the ardor you did before."

Just then a sudden hail from a passing gondola startled them all. Some one was standing up waving his hat violently. "Hallo, Nan Corner! Hallo, Jack!" came a voice as the gondola swung alongside.

Jack peered into the neighboring bark and cried out, "Carter! It's Carter, Nan. I know it is."

"Is that you, Carter Barnwell?" asked Nan leaning forward. "Of all things!"

"That's just who," was the reply; "and another friend of yours."

"Who?" Nan again leaned forward.

"Howdy, Miss Nan," came a second greeting.

"It's Harold Kirk, my cousin, you know," Carter said.

"Well, I declare! Aunt Helen, it is Carter and Mr. Kirk."

"I wish there were room in here for you boys," said Miss Helen.

"Can't we divide up?" asked Carter. "One of us will get in there with you and some of you can come in here with us."

"Rather a difficult proceeding," said Miss Helen laughing.

"I didn't mean that exactly," said Carter laughing, too. "Who all are in there?"

"Nan, Miss Jo Keys and Jack, besides Mr. Pinckney and myself," Miss Helen told him. Mr. Pinckney had given but a word of formal greeting.

"Suppose I get in," proposed Carter, with a look at his companion. "Who will change with me?"

"I'm willing to," Nan offered, "if Aunt Helen will come with me." So it was arranged. The gondolas were brought together and the exchange made.

The third gondola was lagging a considerable distance in the rear of the others, so that its occupants were not yet seen. As Mr. Pinckney and his party were about to start ahead, Mr. Pinckney peremptorily ordered the gondolier to take second place, so it was Mr. Kirk and his friends who led the way.

CHAPTER XVIII

JACK AS CHAMPION

Miss Helen had not met Mr. Kirk before, but she had heard all about him, of how he had come upon Jean in the lobby of a theatre in New York when she was looking for her friends – she had escaped from them in order to visit the fairy queen of a little play to which Mr. Pinckney had taken the Corner girls – of how Jean had been taken under the young man's wing, and how she had dined with him and had finally been brought back safely to Mr. Pinckney's house. Because of all this Mr. Pinckney had invited the young man to Christmas dinner and so his acquaintance with them all began. Miss Helen did not know, however, neither did the Corners, that it was partly on account of this young Marylander that Mr. Pinckney had brought his granddaughter abroad, and that it was because of his presence that he had kept the first and third gondolas apart. For, kind-hearted though he was, and devoted though he might be to his granddaughter, when it became apparent that young Harold Kirk had more than a passing interest in the lovely Dolores, Mr. Pinckney straightway bore her off to Europe, hoping that it would be "out of sight, out of mind" on both sides.

To be sure he was only carrying out a plan which he had determined upon some time before, when he took his granddaughter abroad, and he hoped she would not discover any other than the original intention. He meant to stay long enough to "put a stop to any foolishness," so he told himself. Some day in the indefinite future she might marry, but not yet. He had no special objection to Harold Kirk, in fact he rather liked him, but he wanted no man to step in to take his place in the affections of the granddaughter he had lately discovered. When, therefore, the young man made his appearance upon the scene, Mr. Pinckney was annoyed, to say the least. He had promised himself a good time here in Venice with the Corner children, of whom he was very fond, but now all his plans were upset. He would leave at once.

So he sat silently meditating upon the turn of affairs while the gondolas slipped through the water, and Jack and Jo chatted to Carter Barnwell. Jack adored Carter, and she was a great favorite of his. They had been fast comrades in California and were ready to resume the comradeship on the old footing. After the first few questions which Mr. Pinckney put to Carter about Mrs. Roberts, Mr. Pinckney's daughter, with whom Carter had been making his home, the old gentleman let the young people have it all their own way, seldom making a remark unless in answer to some question put directly to him.

Meanwhile those in the gondola, which was in the lead, were talking of many things. Harold Kirk put a few polite questions about the movements of the party, but at first made no reference to the Pinckneys. Miss Helen was a stranger to him, and his own affairs were to be set aside while he entertained the two with him.

"What I want to know," said Nan after a while, "is how you happened to come across Carter. You know his mother is an old school friend of Aunt Helen's, and we met him in California. He and Jack are the greatest cronies."

"He has talked to me a great deal about Jack. He is a cousin of mine, you know."

"I didn't know. Oh, you must be his Cousin Hal we have heard him speak of. I didn't recognize the abbreviation." Nan was just at the age when she rather liked to use big words.

"His mother and mine are sisters." Mr. Kirk gave the information.

"Then you are Byrd Carter's son," exclaimed Miss Helen. "I have met her, for you know your aunt, Mrs. Barnwell, is a great friend of mine."

This put them all on a closer footing. There were questions to ask and to answer about families and friends, and at last Nan came back to the original subject of how he and Carter happened to come over together.

"Carter looked me up in New York," Mr. Kirk told them. "His father has given him this trip, and the doctor said he was so much better that it would do him no harm, so long as he avoided harsh climates. He will get back home before the November winds become too much for him. I think in time the boy will outgrow that early tendency to lung trouble which took him to California. Yet he likes it out there, and will probably settle down for good. Well, he urged me to come with him, said he hated to make the trip alone, said he would meet the Corner family somewhere – and – well, the temptation was too great, so I came to spend my summer holiday here instead of going to Maine or the Catskills."

"Had you met the Pinckneys here in Venice before you came across us?" asked Nan innocently.

"No."

"Why, we are all together, you know. Mr. Pinckney is in that next gondola, and Miss Dolores is with mother and Mary Lee in the one behind that."

Mr. Kirk was silent for a moment. "Do you know how long they are going to stay?" he asked after a moment.

"Oh, for some time." Nan was positive. "As long as we do and we shall be here at least a week or ten days, shan't we, Aunt Helen?"

Miss Helen assured her that they would stay not less time than that.