The Four Corners Abroad

Mr. Pinckney looked actually confused, picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, took a sip of coffee, looked at his chop but did not touch it. Then he frowned. "It seems to me," he said, "that you're talking about something you don't know anything about."

"If I don't know anything about it," said Jack, "won't you please tell me? Isn't Mr. Kirk an awfully nice young man, or what is the matter? If he is poor that won't make any difference when you have so much money, though I don't think he can be so very poor, for he is Carter's cousin, and Carter has plenty, enough to buy a house with; he told me so."

Mr. Pinckney stirred his coffee silently. "Oh, I suppose he is nice enough," he said presently, "but little girls like you don't know anything about such things."

"I don't suppose we do very much," returned Jack nothing daunted, "but you always tell me about things I don't know about, when no one else will." This was quite true, and Mr. Pinckney was aware that he had encouraged Jack to talk as freely to him as she would to one of her own age, but he had not expected such results to come from the encouragement.

Jack still persisted, though she received no answer to her last remark. "Won't you tell me, please, just why you want to take Miss Dolores away, and why you don't want her to see Mr. Kirk, if it isn't because you're afraid he will marry her?"

"Heavens!" ejaculated Mr. Pinckney, "am I on the witness stand or not?" Yet he felt uncomfortable under Jack's cross-questioning. This came of allowing her to ply him with questions on any subject. He had always scorned the old saw that children should be seen and not heard, but at this present moment, he heartily wished he had been less indulgent. Jack had fixed innocent questioning eyes upon him and presently he blurted out, "No, I don't want her to marry him."

"Why not?" persisted Jack.

"Because I don't want to lose her just as I've found her."

"But didn't I tell you it would be awfully nice to have them both live with you?"

"Perhaps I don't think it would."

"But you like Mr. Kirk. You did at first. You kept saying he was fine, and you invited him to your house, and used to have him take lunch with you at your club and all that. What made you get mad with him? Was it because he liked Miss Dolores so much?"

"That may be one reason."

"But don't you want her to be happy?"

"Of course, of course, but I don't want another man to be taking up all her time and attention, and absorbing all the interest and affection I have just won."

"But he wouldn't be taking up all her time; he couldn't when he has to be at his office all day. Do you mean that you think she couldn't love you both? Why, I love Nan and Jean bushels and bushels, but I love mother most. There was Nan, too, she has always loved mother and has loved me more than anything, yet when Aunt Helen came all of a sudden, she loved her awfully hard, and it didn't make a bit of difference about her loving us first. Are you afraid Miss Dolores hasn't enough love to go around?"

"Dear me, child, I never knew such heart-searching questions. You ought to have been a lawyer or a Methodist exhorter. Now, I will ask you something. How do you know this Mr. Kirk wants to marry my granddaughter? Has he ever told you so?"

"No," returned Jack doubtfully. "Of course he wouldn't tell a little girl like me, but if he doesn't, then what in the world is the use of your going off in such a hurry as soon as he comes when you meant to stay here just as long as we do?"

Then Mr. Pinckney laughed. "Child," he said, "you're too much for me. There haven't been generations of lawyers in your family for nothing. I think, after all, we won't go to-day." And he fell to eating his breakfast without noticing that it was nearly cold.

CHAPTER XIX

A YOUTHFUL GUIDE

As the days passed Mr. Pinckney seemed to have forgotten entirely his original intention of deserting his friends in Venice, and of bearing Miss Dolores away beyond the attentions of Harold Kirk. He was his old jolly, generous self, so that every one had the best of times in consequence of his enthusiasm and eagerness for fun. Sometimes he would take the twins off for a frolic leaving the others to follow some fancy of their own; again he would have the whole party to dinner at some pleasant outdoor restaurant, where queer Italian dishes were served. There were excursions to Murano to see the glass-works, to Burano to see the lace-makers, to Torcello, to Chioggia on a feast day, and oftener than anywhere to the Lido, a place which the younger girls adored.

There seemed to be good feeling on the part of Mr. Pinckney toward both Carter and his cousin, and there were no more frowns, though once or twice when Mr. Pinckney caught Jack looking at him speculatively, he gave her a quizzical glance in return, but he never allowed the subject they had discussed at the breakfast table to be brought up again.

At last came a day when Miss Helen and Mrs. Corner decided that they must leave Venice if they were to see anything of other places. So again they packed up in order to start for Florence. This decision of theirs was the signal for the rest to make a move and all traveled in company.

"If I only had my motor car here we could get another, and go through Italy in that way," said Carter. "What jolly good times we had in California traveling around together."

"We'll do it again some time," Miss Helen assured him. "It is too delightful a thing not to make a separate and distinct tour of. Now you have started, Carter, no doubt you will come over often."

"Maybe," he said, "though one mustn't do too much junketing, once he is settled down to the real business of life. Dad thought I had been pretty diligent in some ways, and he said I deserved a bit of a change, though if Mr. and Mrs. Roberts hadn't made up their minds to have a houseful of company this summer, I doubt if I should have left them."

"But you did want to see us, didn't you, Carter?" asked Jack who was never far away when Carter was on hand.

"Of course I did, and that is precisely why I came, though under different circumstances I might have felt that I ought to stay behind. We often can't do the things we want to, Jack, my honey, and often we must do things we don't like to."

Jack did not apply this quite as it was intended as was apparent by what followed, for she nodded to Mr. Pinckney and said: "Do you hear that, Mr. St. Nick?"

"What's that?" he asked looking up from his time-table.

Jack repeated what Carter had said, and Mr. Pinckney's jolly laugh followed. "Oh, but you are a rogue," he said. "Come over here." Jack obeyed. "Look over there," said Mr. Pinckney, "and say if I am not a devoted and long-suffering grandfather."

Jack looked to see Miss Dolores and Mr. Kirk slowly walking together, evidently absorbed in a deeply interesting conversation. They were all at the moment making a last visit to the Lido and the next day would start for Florence.

To this city Nan had looked forward with great expectancy, and though at first she was disappointed, after being possessed with the beauty of Venice, in a day or two she was quite satisfied that Florence held its own delights which were even more satisfying to her than those of Venice. Its galleries, its churches, its history, its environs opened, one after another, a series of interests which appealed to the girl strongly. She did not despise its lighter charms either, for she reveled in the gay shops along the Lungarno, and the displays of the goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio. The Cascine, the Boboli Gardens and the gardens of San Miniato were places for which the twins clamored to be taken often, and there was generally some one in the party to indulge them; if not Miss Helen or Mrs. Corner, then Mr. Pinckney or Carter would offer escort. So while the others prowled around picture galleries and discussed churches the twins were off on some excursion which better pleased their youthful tastes.

All this while Miss Dolores seemed unconscious of the interest her love affair was exciting. She knew very well, however, that her grandfather did not approve of it in the beginning, but feeling that she owed everything to him she had docilely accepted his decisions. She realized that it would be hard to part from Mr. Kirk, and she knew the separation might mean the giving up of her lover entirely, but whatever she felt she kept within her own heart. So it was a surprise to her when her grandfather suddenly accepted Mr. Kirk as a member of the happy party and included him in invitations and plans which she shared.

It was intended to spend Easter at Rome, but at the last moment the grown-ups decided to remain in Florence because Rome was so crowded that good rooms for so large a number of persons would be difficult to get, and because the children would enjoy Lo Scoppio del Carro quite as much as anything they might see in Rome where the Carnival had lost many of its pleasant features.

"You don't want our girls in that rabble on the Corso," said Mr. Pinckney. "We'd better stay here and see the Columbina."

So stay they did, and on the Saturday before Easter gathered with the rest of the crowd before the cathedral, their carriages joining the line of others, to watch for the great car filled with fireworks. Hundreds of country people had assembled, for this was a great occasion to them, much depending, in their superstitious minds, upon the voyage of the dove.

Jack and Jean, as interested as the Italian spectators, craned their necks to see the famous Columbina. "What does it look like?" asked Jean. "Is it a real dove?"

"No," her Aunt Helen told her, "it is only a contrivance in the shape of one."

"How does it get here?"

"It is lighted at the high altar during the Gloria and is run along a string or wire to the car."

This was not so very mysterious, but was sufficiently interesting to be looked for eagerly, and its progress to and from the altar became a more exciting thing to watch than the fireworks themselves.

At last the fireworks ceased. There was a movement in the crowd. Something else was to follow. "Oh, see the white oxen," cried Jack.

Every one looked to see the mild-eyed creatures who, with slow tread, dragged the car to the Via del Proconsolo.

The Corner party followed, their driver taking a short cut so they would be in time to see the arrival of the car, and to watch the remainder of the fireworks which were set off at the Canto de' Pazzi.

As they drove home they stopped at the flower market in the arcades of the Uffizi, and bore home their Easter flowers. "Such a lot of them and so cheap," said Mary Lee. "No wonder they call the city Florence, for what could be more flowery at this time of year?"

The carriages were dismissed at the flower market and all walked along the Lungarno to their hotel, stopping once in a while to look in the shop-windows or to interchange remarks.

"We shall go to the Boboli Garden to-morrow," announced the twins. "Mr. St. Nick is going to take us. We think it is the prettiest thing in Florence."

"What do you like best, Nan?" Jack asked.

"Oh, the galleries, the Uffizi and the Pitti, of course."