The Four Corners Abroad

"It's been a great day," said Carter as they started for the railway station.

"Haven't we had a good time?" said Jack cordially. "What are you going to do this evening, Carter?"

"Don't know, Jaquita. I may go to the opera, if we get back in time. I know very well what you will do."

"What?"

"Tumble into your little bed and go to sleep in about two minutes," returned Carter laughing.

They were all so tired that opera was not to be thought of, and it was decided to put off that pleasure till the next evening when all went except Mrs. Corner and the twins.

"I suppose Nan will be snippy and will say it's not worth listening to because the music is not Wagner's," said Mary Lee as they started out through the gay streets.

"Indeed I shall not," returned Nan indignantly. "I like Wagner best, of course, but I can enjoy anything good, I hope."

"I've never reached the place where I can appreciate Wagner," confessed Jo.

"You're not studying music," Nan explained. "If you were you would feel differently. I didn't care so much for it either till Frau Burg-Schmidt introduced me to the mysteries. Now that I can understand it I think it is the greatest ever."

"Old Rossini and Donizetti and those fellows are good enough for me," declared Carter.

Nan had her own ideas, but she only whispered to her aunt, "He has never heard Knote sing Siegfried or Tannhauser." She was not going to spoil the evening by futile argument.

It was by no means spoiled, however, for the great opera house of San Carlo provided them with a fine caste for the light music they heard. It was a very different and less attentive audience from that with which Nan had grown so familiar in Munich, but as she gravely explained, "The character of the music is so very different," a remark which caused Miss Helen to smile and Jo to laugh outright, so very superior was Nan's tone.

A flood of sunshine, blue Italian skies, dancing blue waters in the lovely bay greeted them the next morning. "This is the day that was made for our trip to Capri and the Blue Grotto," announced Miss Helen when they were taking breakfast. "So get ready, girls. Pack your bags, for we shall stop off at Sorrento for a few days."

Off flew the girls, for there was but a short time before the steamer would start on its daily trip. There was bustle enough for the next fifteen minutes, and then one after another appeared, ready to go.

"This will be the best of all," said Mary Lee. "I feel it."

"What do you do when you get there?" asked Jean.

"Get where?"

"To wherever we are going. I don't know exactly where it is. One of you says Capri, another talks about Sorrento, and Jack declares it is the Blue Grotto."

"It is all three," Mary Lee told her. "We stop at the Blue Grotto first, then we go to Capri and have our lunch, and after that we go to Sorrento."

"Oh!" Jean understood. She was somewhat fearful of the Blue Grotto, and was rather scared when the little boat shot into the small opening, and the wonderful blue cave was before her. She buried her face in her mother's lap and would not look up at first, but a call from Jack, who was in the next boat with Carter, caused her to be braver. "I wasn't scared a bit, was I, Carter?" sang out Jack.

This part of the trip was soon over and they went on to Capri, where they were ready to linger longer than the time allowed. "Capri is too charming for words. Must we leave it?" the girls said to their elders.

"My dears, if we stopped at all the charming places we should never get home," Mrs. Corner told them. "You will have to be satisfied with a little stop at Sorrento this time."

"Capri will be here for ages yet," said Carter, "and when we get to be tottering old people, Jack, we will come here to celebrate our golden wedding."

"Silly!" was all the answer Jack vouchsafed.

A babble of clamoring voices surrounded their steamer which suddenly came to a standstill. "What in the world is the matter?" said Mary Lee jumping up.

"Come along, girls," Mr. Pinckney called to them, and they found they must leave the steamer for one of the small rowboats rocking on the water alongside. The clamor of voices calling out the names of the various hotels of Sorrento issued from these. Mr. Pinckney shouted out the name of the one they had selected, and one after another descended to reëmbark and to be rowed shoreward to an ancient pier at the foot of the lofty crags.

"Now," said Jean settling herself, "we are going to eat oranges for three whole days."

Not only oranges, but all manner of good things did their hotel afford. Roses rioted in its gardens, beautiful views were seen from their windows, a fair orange grove became their happy retreat. Their three days in this loveliest of spots seemed all too short, so, throwing all other plans aside, they lingered too happy and content to care for anything further.

If it was a glad time to the Corners, to at least two of the party it seemed a Paradise, the world forgot. It was Jack who first learned what every one else suspected. She had been walking with Mr. Pinckney in the orange grove the last evening of their stay at Sorrento. They stopped to sit down on one of the old stone seats from which they could look out at the glorious view of Naples, Vesuvius, Capri and Ischia which was spread out before them.

Presently Mr. Pinckney gave a long sigh. "Are you sighing because it is so beautiful?" asked Jack solicitously, "or because you ate too much supper?"

In spite of himself Mr. Pinckney could not help from laughing, his jolly old chuckle, but almost immediately became serious again. "It is something else, Jack," he said. "I'm going to lose my little girl."

"You don't mean me, do you?" said Jack after a moment's pause. She could not imagine any other whom he would call his little girl.

"No, not you. I hope we shall not lose you for a great many years. I mean, my dear, that I am doing as you told me to do there in Venice. I am trying not to be a selfish old fellow and am consenting to give up Miss Dolores because it will make her happy."

Jack's arms went around his neck and she imprinted a hearty kiss upon his cheek. "You darling!" she exclaimed. "I think you are too sweet for words."

This was too much for him and he again broke into a laugh. "I'm glad you approve," he said, "but while you are so glad for that granddaughter of mine, you haven't a word of sympathy for me. What is to become of me?"

"Why, of course you will be happy, too. Aren't they going to live with you?"

"Yes, that dear Dolly of mine wouldn't say yes otherwise."

"Of course she wouldn't. Well, then, won't you have her and Mr. Kirk both, and Nan and Mary Lee and Jean and me besides?" Another mighty hug and kiss.

"Bless your heart, when I get to feeling down-hearted I'll send for you. I'll make a bargain with your mother this very night."

"I think sometimes you might come and see us where we are," returned Jack, "though, of course, I shall always like to go to see you," she added hastily.

"It's a bargain," he said. "When you can't come to me then I will go to you, whenever I feel that I am in the way at home."

"Oh, but you were never in the way," Jack hastened to assure him, then she added mirthfully, "except that first time I saw you when I ran into you."

The recollection of this put Mr. Pinckney into a happier humor, and the two went up to the house to tell their news to the family.

And so when, a week later, they all turned away from the beautiful land where they had enjoyed so many good times, to set out upon the journey home, it was not only to school and their native town that they looked forward, but to the Christmas wedding of their dear and lovely friend Miss Dolores, when for the first time each of the four Corners would perform the office of bridesmaid.