What Katy Did Next

"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. The fun waxed fast and furious; and Lieutenant Worthington, coming in with his hands full of parcels for the Christmas-tree, was just in time to hear Katy remark in a strong County Kerry brogue,—

"Och, thin indade, Miss Amy, and it's no more cake you'll be getting out of me the night. That's four pieces you've ate, and it's little slape your poor mother'll git with you a tossin' and tumblin' forenenst her all night long because of your big appetite."

"Oh, Miss Katy, talk Irish some more!" cried the delighted children.

"Is it Irish you'd be afther having me talk, when it's me own langwidge, and sorrow a bit of another do I know?" demanded Katy. Then she caught sight of the new arrival and stopped short with a blush and a laugh.

"Come in, Mr. Worthington," she said; "we're at supper, as you see, and I am acting as waitress."

"Oh, Uncle Ned, please go away," pleaded Amy, "or Katy will be polite, and not talk Irish any more."

"Indade, and the less ye say about politeness the betther, when ye're afther ordering the jantleman out of the room in that fashion!" said the waitress. Then she pulled off her cap and untied her apron.

"Now for the Christmas-tree," she said.

It was a very little tree, but it bore some remarkable fruits; for in addition to the "tiny toys and candles fit for Lilliput," various parcels were found to have been hastily added at the last moment for various people. The "Natchitoches" had lately come from the Levant, and delightful Oriental confections now appeared for Amy and Mrs. Ashe; Turkish slippers, all gold embroidery; towels, with richly decorated ends in silks and tinsel;—all the pretty superfluities which the East holds out to charm gold from the pockets of her Western visitors. A pretty little dagger in agate and silver fell to Katy's share out of what Lieutenant Worthington called his "loot;" and beside, a most beautiful specimen of the inlaid work for which Nice is famous,—a looking-glass, with a stand and little doors to close it in,—which was a present from Mrs. Ashe. It was quite unlike a Christmas Eve at home, but altogether delightful; and as Katy sat next morning on the sand, after the service in the English church, to finish her home letter, and felt the sun warm on her cheek, and the perfumed air blow past as softly as in June, she had to remind herself that Christmas is not necessarily synonymous with snow and winter, but means the great central heat and warmth, the advent of Him who came to lighten the whole earth.

A few days after this pleasant Christmas they left Nice. All of them felt a reluctance to move, and Amy loudly bewailed the necessity.

"If I could stay here till it is time to go home, I shouldn't be homesick at all," she declared.

"But what a pity it would be not to see Italy!" said her mother. "Think of Naples and Rome and Venice."

"I don't want to think about them. It makes me feel as if I was studying a great long geography lesson, and it tires me so to learn it."

"Amy, dear, you're not well."

"Yes, I am,—quite well; only I don't want to go away from Nice."

"You only have to learn a little bit at a time of your geography lesson, you know," suggested Katy; "and it's a great deal nicer way to study it than out of a book." But though she spoke cheerfully she was conscious that she shared Amy's reluctance.

"It's all laziness," she told herself. "Nice has been so pleasant that it has spoiled me."

It was a consolation and made going easier that they were to drive over the famous Cornice Road as far as San Remo, instead of going to Genoa by rail as most travellers now-a-days do. They departed from the Pension Suisse early on an exquisite morning, fair and balmy as June, but with a little zest and sparkle of coolness in the air which made it additionally delightful. The Mediterranean was of the deepest violet-blue; a sort of bloom of color seemed to lie upon it. The sky was like an arch of turquoise; every cape and headland shone jewel-like in the golden sunshine. The carriage, as it followed the windings of the road cut shelf-like on the cliffs, seemed poised between earth and heaven; the sea below, the mountain summits above, with a fairy world of verdure between. The journey was like a dream of enchantment and rapidly changing surprises; and when it ended in a quaint hostelry at San Remo, with palm-trees feathering the Bordighera Point and Corsica, for once seen by day, lying in bold, clear outlines against the sunset, Katy had to admit to herself that Nice, much as she loved it, was not the only, not even the most beautiful place in Europe. Already she felt her horizon growing, her convictions changing; and who should say what lay beyond?

The next day brought them to Genoa, to a hotel once the stately palace of an archbishop, where they were lodged, all three together, in an enormous room, so high and broad and long that their three little curtained beds set behind a screen of carved wood made no impression on the space. There were not less than four sofas and double that number of arm-chairs in the room, besides a couple of monumental wardrobes; but, as Katy remarked, several grand pianos could still have been moved in without anybody's feeling crowded. On one side of them lay the port of Genoa, filled with craft from all parts of the world, and flying the flags of a dozen different nations. From the other they caught glimpses of the magnificent old city, rising in tier over tier of churches and palaces and gardens; while nearer still were narrow streets, which glittered with gold filigree and the shops of jewel-workers. And while they went in and out and gazed and wondered, Lilly Page, at the Pension Suisse, was saying,—

"I am so glad that Katy and that Mrs. Ashe are gone. Nothing has been so pleasant since they came. Lieutenant Worthington is dreadfully stiff and stupid, and seems quite different from what he used to be. But now that we have got rid of them it will all come right again."

"I really don't think that Katy was to blame," said Mrs. Page. "She never seemed to me to be making any effort to attract him."

"Oh, Katy is sly," responded Lilly, vindictively. "She never seems to do anything, but somehow she always gets her own way. I suppose she thought I didn't see her keeping him down there on the beach the other day when he was coming in to call on us, but I did. It was just out of spite, and because she wanted to vex me; I know it was."

"Well, dear, she's gone now, and you won't be worried with her again," said her mother, soothingly. "Don't pout so, Lilly, and wrinkle up your forehead. It's very unbecoming."

"Yes, she's gone," snapped Lilly; "and as she's bound for the East, and we for the West, we are not likely to meet again, for which I am devoutly thankful."

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES

"We are going to follow the track of Ulysses," said Katy, with her eyes fixed on the little travelling-map in her guide-book. "Do you realize that, Polly dear? He and his companions sailed these very seas before us, and we shall see the sights they saw,—Circe's Cape and the Isles of the Sirens, and Polyphemus himself, perhaps, who knows?"

The "Marco Polo" had just cast off her moorings, and was slowly steaming out of the crowded port of Genoa into the heart of a still rosy sunset. The water was perfectly smooth; no motion could be felt but the engine's throb. The trembling foam of the long wake showed glancing points of phosphorescence here and there, while low on the eastern sky a great silver planet burned like a signal lamp.

"Polyphemus was a horrible giant. I read about him once, and I don't want to see him," observed Amy, from her safe protected perch in her mother's lap.

"He may not be so bad now as he was in those old times. Some missionary may have come across him and converted him. If he were good, you wouldn't mind his being big, would you?" suggested Katy.

"N-o," replied Amy, doubtfully; "but it would take a great lot of missionaries to make him good, I should think. One all alone would be afraid to speak to him. We shan't really see him, shall we?"

"I don't believe we shall; and if we stuff cotton in our ears and look the other way, we need not hear the sirens sing," said Katy, who was in the highest spirits.—"And oh, Polly dear, there is one delightful thing I forgot to tell you about. The captain says he shall stay in Leghorn all day to-morrow taking on freight, and we shall have plenty of time to run up to Pisa and see the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and everything else. Now, that is something Ulysses didn't do! I am so glad I didn't die of measles when I was little, as Rose Red used to say." She gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke, and caught it again as it fell, very much as the Katy Carr of twelve years ago might have done.

"What a child you are!" said Mrs. Ashe, approvingly; "you never seem out of sorts or tired of things."

"Out of sorts? I should think not! And pray why should I be, Polly dear?"

Katy had taken to calling her friend "Polly dear" of late,—a trick picked up half unconsciously from Lieutenant Ned. Mrs. Ashe liked it; it was sisterly and intimate, she said, and made her feel nearer Katy's age.

"Does the tower really lean?" questioned Amy,—"far over, I mean, so that we can see it?"

"We shall know to-morrow," replied Katy. "If it doesn't, I shall lose all my confidence in human nature."

Katy's confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired. There stood the famous tower, when they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa, next morning, looking all aslant, exactly as it does in the pictures and the alabaster models, and seeming as if in another moment it must topple over, from its own weight, upon their heads. Mrs. Ashe declared that it was so unnatural that it made her flesh creep; and when she was coaxed up the winding staircase to the top, she turned so giddy that they were all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again. She turned her back upon the tower, as they crossed the grassy space to the majestic old Cathedral, saying that if she thought about it any more, she should become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation, which she had always been told all respectable people must believe in.

The guide showed them the lamp swinging by a long slender chain, before which Galileo is said to have sat and pondered while he worked out his theory of the pendulum. This lamp seemed a sort of own cousin to the attraction of gravitation, and they gazed upon it with respect. Then they went to the Baptistery to see Niccolo Pisano's magnificent pulpit of creamy marble, a mass of sculpture supported on the backs of lions, and the equally lovely font, and to admire the extraordinary sound which their guide evoked from a mysterious echo, with which he seemed to be on intimate terms, for he made it say whatever he would and almost "answer back."

It was in coming out of the Baptistery that they met with an adventure which Amy could never quite forget. Pisa is the mendicant city of Italy, and her streets are infested with a band of religious beggars who call themselves the Brethren of the Order of Mercy. They wear loose black gowns, sandals laced over their bare feet, and black cambric masks with holes, through which their eyes glare awfully; and they carry tin cups for the reception of offerings, which they thrust into the faces of all strangers visiting the city, whom they look upon as their lawful prey.