"Nice, December 22.

"Dear Papa and everybody,--Amy and I are sitting on my old purple cloak, which is spread over the sand just where it was spread the last time I wrote you. We are playing the following game: I am a fairy and she is a little girl. Another fairy--not sitting on the cloak at present--has enchanted the little girl, and I am telling her various ways by which she can work out her deliverance. At present the task is to find twenty-four dull red pebbles of the same color, failing to do which she is to be changed into an owl. When we began to play, I was the wicked fairy; but Amy objected to that because I am 'so nice,' so we changed the characters. I wish you could see the glee in her pretty gray eyes over this infantile game, into which she has thrown herself so thoroughly that she half believes in it. 'But I needn't really be changed into an owl! 'she says, with a good deal of anxiety in her voice.

"To think that you are shivering in the first snow-storm, or sending the children out with their sleds and india-rubbers to slide! How I wish instead that you were sharing the purple cloak with Amy and me, and could sit all this warm balmy afternoon close to the surf-line which fringes this bluest of blue seas! There is plenty of room for you all. Not many people come down to this end of the beach, and if you were very good we would let you play.

"Our life here goes on as delightfully as ever. Nice is very full of people, and there seem to be some pleasant ones among them. Here at the Pension Suisse we do not see a great many Americans. The fellow-boarders are princ.i.p.ally Germans and Austrians with a sprinkling of French. (Amy has found her twenty-four red pebbles, so she is let off from being an owl. She is now engaged in throwing them one by one into the sea. Each must hit the water under penalty of her being turned into a Muscovy duck. She doesn't know exactly what a Muscovy duck is, which makes her all the more particular about her shots.) But, as I was saying, our little _suite_ in the round tower is so on one side of the rest of the Pension that it is as good as having a house of our own. The _salon_ is very bright and sunny; we have two sofas and a square table and a round table and a sort of what-not and two easy-chairs and two uneasy chairs and a lamp of our own and a clock. There is also a sofa-pillow. There's richness for you! We have pinned up all our photographs on the walls, including Papa's and Clovy's and that bad one of Phil and Johnnie making faces at each other, and three lovely red and yellow j.a.panese pictures on muslin which Rose Red put in my trunk the last thing, for a spot of color. There are some autumn leaves too; and we always have flowers and in the mornings and evenings a fire.

"Amy is now finding fifty snow-white pebbles, which when found are to be interred in one common grave among the shingle. If she fails to do this, she is to be changed to an electrical eel. The chief difficulty is that she loses her heart to particular pebbles. 'I can't bury you,' I hear her saying.

"To return,--we have jolly little breakfasts together in the _salon_. They consist of coffee and rolls, and are served by a droll, snappish little _garcon_ with no teeth, and an Italian-French patois which is very hard to understand when he sputters. He told me the other day that he had been a _garcon_ for forty-six years, which seemed rather a long boyhood.

"The company, as we meet them at table, are rather entertaining.

Cousin Olivia and Lilly are on their best behavior to me because I am travelling with Mrs. Ashe, and Mrs. Ashe is Lieutenant Worthington's sister, and Lieutenant Worthington is Lilly's admirer, and they like him very much. In fact, Lilly has intimated confidentially that she is all but engaged to him; but I am not sure about it, or if that was what she meant; and I fear, if it proves true, that dear Polly will not like it at all. She is quite unmanageable, and snubs Lilly continually in a polite way, which makes me fidgety for fear Lilly will be offended, but she never seems to notice it. Cousin Olivia looks very handsome and gorgeous.

She quite takes the color out of the little Russian Countess who sits next to her, and who is as dowdy and meek as if she came from Akron or Binghampton, or any other place where countesses are unknown. Then there are two charming, well-bred young Austrians. The one who sits nearest to me is a 'Candidat' for a Doctorate of Laws, and speaks eight languages well. He has only studied English for the past six weeks, but has made wonderful progress. I wish my French were half as good as his English is already.

"There is a very gossiping young woman on the story beneath ours, whom I meet sometimes in the garden, and from her I hear all manner of romantic tales about people in the house. One little French girl is dying of consumption and a broken heart, because of a quarrel with her lover, who is a courier; and the _padrona_, who is young and pretty, and has only been married a few months to our elderly landlord, has a story also. I forget some of the details; but there was a stern parent and an admirer, and a cup of cold poison, and now she says she wishes she were dying of consumption like poor Alphonsine. For all that, she looks quite fat and rosy, and I often see her in her best gown with a great deal of Roman scarf and mosaic jewelry, stationed in the doorway, 'making the Pension look attractive to the pa.s.sers-by.' So she has a sense of duty, though she is unhappy.

"Amy has buried all her pebbles, and says she is tired of playing fairy. She is now sitting with her head on my shoulder, and professedly studying her French verb for to-morrow, but in reality, I am sorry to say, she is conversing with me about be-headings,--a subject which, since her visit to the Tower, has exercised a horrible fascination over her mind. 'Do people die right away?' she asks. 'Don't they feel one minute, and doesn't it feel awfully?'

There is a good deal of blood, she supposes, because there was so much straw laid about the block in the picture of Lady Jane Gray's execution, which enlivened our walls in Paris. On the whole, I am rather glad that a fat little white dog has come waddling down the beach and taken off her attention.

"Speaking of Paris seems to renew the sense of fog which we had there. Oh, how enchanting sunshine is after weeks of gloom! I shall never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first,--all blue, and such a lovely color. There ought, according to Morse's Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we were, but I didn't see any. Perhaps they letter it so far out from sh.o.r.e that only people in boats notice it.

"Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these warm afternoons begins to be felt. Amy has received a message written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect--"

Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel behind her.

"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 peac.o.c.ks, 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 f.a.got 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 ap.r.o.n 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 appet.i.te."

"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 ap.r.o.n.

"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-gla.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce. 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."