“I AM glad to be in Rome again,” said Flo, as they once more sat at tea
in the winter-garden of the hotel.
“Rome again, Rome again,
From a foreign shore,”
sang Patty; “but it doesn’t seem like Rome with none of the other
Wonderers here.”
“And soon you’re going, too;–oh, Patty, how I shall miss you!”
“I’ll miss you, too, Flo dear. We’ve had good times together, haven’t
we?”
“Yes, indeed; I’ll tell Lady Kitty all about it when I go back. I wish
she could have been here with us.”
“Yes, I hoped to have her; but I find she’s a most uncertain personage.
‘But what’s the use of repining? to-morrow the sun may be shining!’”
“That’s just you, all over, Patty! I believe whoever composed that
classic couplet must have known you. Do you never repine?”
“To tell you the awful truth, Flo, I don’t quite know what that word
means! Re-pine, I daresay, is to pine again. But you see I don’t know
how to pine the first time.”
“Oh, Patty, you’re a silly. But I can tell you Mr. Peter Homer is going
to do some pining after you.”
“Really! Oh, Flo, how you embarrass me. I don’t know where to hide my
blushing face.”
Saucy Patty was not embarrassed a bit, and Flo well knew it. But Flo
had felt ever so tiny a tinge of jealousy at the evident interest Mr.
Homer took in Patty, and she couldn’t resist speaking of it.
“Don’t you care, Patty, if he ‘pines’ for you?”
“I can’t conscientiously say that I do,” remarked Patty, with a
judicial air. “He’s free to pine if he enjoys it, I’m sure.”
“Don’t you care for him, specially, Patty?” went on Flo, determined to
learn Patty’s sentiment toward him.
“’Deed I don’t! I like him a lot; he’s one of the kindest and cleverest
men I know. But as to ‘liking him specially,’ as you call it, I truly
don’t.”
“Do you like any one specially?” persisted Flo.
“For goodness’ gracious’ sake, Flo! What is the matter with you? If you
mean am I in love with anybody, I certainly am not, and don’t expect to
be for several hundred years yet! So there, now!”
“You’re a funny girl, Patty. I expect to be married before I’m twenty.”
“Well, I don’t! And I don’t want to. I may get married sometime in
the distant future, if I find anybody I can ‘pine’ for. But I’m only
eighteen now, and I can’t be bothering with such matters.”
“You’ll be nineteen next spring.”
“So I will! Well, come ’round then, and I’ll talk to you about it. Have
some tea?”
Flo and Patty had grown to be devoted friends, and both were really
sorry that their parting was so near. A week’s stay in Rome, and then
the Fairfields would leave for Naples, and so home, by way of the
Mediterranean, while Flo and Snippy would return at once to England.
The few days in Rome were devoted to farewell glimpses of favourite
spots.
Patty, with Flo and Snippy, roamed round the Forum, and gazed at the
Coliseum, and re-visited many of the churches.
One evening Mr. Leland took them all to dinner in a delightful
restaurant that overlooked the Palatine.
“I don’t feel that I know my Palatine at all,” said Patty, regretfully.
“Don’t try to,” said Mr. Leland, kindly. “Nobody really knows the
Palatine, except the great scholars. When in the Palatine, just
flounder about, and get the whole as a general picture of ruined glory.
That’s all you can do.”
“Yes,” agreed Patty. “I have a mixed-up memory of Livia’s house, and
Augustus’s house, and the rest, and it doesn’t really matter much who’s
who in the Palatine, does it?”
“Not a bit,” said Mr. Leland; “but you can get a fair idea of the whole
from this balcony.”
He took Patty out on a balcony of the restaurant, used in summer as an
open-air eating-place and showed her the general view of the Palatine
Hill. The others followed and listened with interest, while Mr. Leland
pointed out the various ruins.
“It’s splendid,” said Nan, who was really more of a student of these
things than Patty. “I shall always remember this view. It makes me feel
nearer to ancient Rome than any other.”
“I don’t want you to get too near to ancient Rome,” said Mr.
Fairfield, laughing, as he led her back indoors. “I want to keep you in
the twentieth century for some time yet.”
The last day in Rome, Patty was quite pensive,–for her. She went and
sat on the Spanish Steps, she bought another large photograph of the
Coliseum, and some more models of the Forum, which last, however, were
broken to bits long before she reached home.
“I don’t see why they don’t make the silly things stronger,” she said
as, on reaching the hotel, she found two of the models in fragments.
“Because they’re ruins,” said Nan, consolingly. “Those old columns are
nearly all in ruins, so it’s fitting the little models should follow in
their ways.”
“Pshaw!” said Patty, flinging away the bits she had been trying to
piece together. “There’s no use getting any more of those; they smash
if you look at them.”
“Don’t look at them then,” said Nan, sweetly.
“I’ll try to get some cast-iron ones,–that’s the only kind of
cast that won’t break,” said Patty, as she contented herself with
photographs instead.
It was a lovely, sunshiny, autumn day when the Fairfields started for
Naples.
“Our party grows smaller every time we move,” said Patty to Flo. “Now
we are dropping you and Snippy, but I suppose father and Nan and I will
stick together till we reach New York.”
“You’ll have to,” said practical Flo, “unless you leave one at Naples
or Gibraltar.”
“I wish you were going to Naples with us.”
“I wish so too, Patty; but mother has written us to come home, and we
really must go. But it has been a lovely pleasure trip with you, and
I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“Of course we shall. You surely must come to New York. Snippy can bring
you, can’t she?”
“Yes, indeed; Snippy could take me to the North Pole, if we decided to
go.”
“Well, see that she brings you to New York first. And now good-by, Flo,
dearie. Write to me soon and often. Good-by, Snippy.”
“Good-by, Miss Patty.”
And then everybody said good-by to everybody else, and the travellers
took the train, and Patty waved to Flo from the window, and called
good-by again, and then they started, and the Fairfields were once more
by themselves.
“You’ll be dull, Patsy,” said her father, “with only your own relatives
to entertain you.”
“What a libel, Daddy! Was I ever dull?”
“No, but there must be a first time for everything.”
“Well, it won’t be while I’ve you and my vivacious stepmother for
travelling companions.”
And truly it didn’t seem so. Nan and Patty fell to chattering, until
Mr. Fairfield had difficulty in getting in a word edgewise. At last
he took refuge in a newspaper, and finally fell asleep, while the
loquacious two chattered on. They had not been much together while
Patty had the younger girls about, and as they were really very good
chums, they had much to talk over.
It seemed but a short trip, and before they knew it they were in Naples.
“I know I shall hate this place,” said Patty, in tones of firm
conviction. “It’s the dirtiest and beggariest town in all Italy.”
But as they started in an open cab for their hotel, Patty changed her
mind.
“I don’t see any dirt,” she said. “They must have swept lately. And not
a beggar has begged yet.”
The driver pointed out the places of interest as they went along, and
Patty’s admiration steadily increased.
“I love Naples!” she said, finally. “Whoever jumped on it was all
wrong.”
“People don’t jump on things in Italy,” said her father, reprovingly.
“No, they’re too lazy to jump,” agreed Patty. “What hotel are we going
to, Father?”
“To the Palace Hotel,–up on the Cliffs.”
“They’re all palace hotels in Italy, aren’t they? Is that it, ’way up
in the sky? How ever did it perch itself up on that high place?”
“Spread its wings and flew up there,” said her father.
“I think it went up there to get a good view of the bay,” said Nan.
“The Bay of Naples!” cried Patty, standing up in the cab to look behind
her. “I’ve seen it on postcards, and it’s almost as blue, really. Oh,
people! Isn’t it great!”
“Sit down, Patty, you’ll break your neck.”
“Not in this gently moving chaise. Oh, we’re climbing this great hill.
See how the road winds, and how the cliffs—-”
“Beetle,” said Nan.
“Yes, that’s just it! These are beetling crags. I never realised what
that meant before. And see this strange thing! It must be the ruins of
an old dungeon. See how it juts and slopes straight up the mountain. A
castle, ruined by an earthquake, probably. What is it, driver?”
“A landslide, madame.”
“Oh,” said Patty, in disgust, “I thought it was a ruined building.”
Arrived at the top of the really high hill, they alighted at the
entrance to the hotel. And a peculiar entrance it was. First they
walked through a long, straight marble-lined corridor that had been cut
horizontally into the cliff. From this a vertical elevator-shaft was
cut straight up to the hotel itself, many feet above. The ride up in
the elevator seemed interminable, but at last they stepped out into a
beautiful glass-enclosed parlour, from which Naples could be seen below
them in every direction.
“Oh! oh!” exclaimed Patty, running from the view of the bay to that of
Vesuvius, and then to the city view.
“I never saw such a fascinating place! Stay over another steamer,
Daddy; don’t let’s go home yet.”
“We’ll settle that question later. Now, let’s go and find our rooms,
Puss, and then you can come back here. The views will probably keep an
hour or so.”
They followed an attendant through long corridors and labyrinthine
ways, and came at last to their rooms, which looked out upon the
beautiful bay, with Capri smiling sunnily across the blue, and Vesuvius
standing calmly on the other side. Patty, in ecstasies of delight,
could scarcely wait to unpack her things, and danced into Nan’s room,
exclaiming anew at the beauties of the hotel, the city, and Italy in
general.
“You goose!” said Nan. “One would think you’d never seen anything at
all before. Do you like it better than Venice, or Rome?”
“No,–not better,” said Patty, slowly, “but you see I didn’t expect to
like it at all, and so it’s such a surprise.”
“Well, run and put on a fresh frock for tea, and then you can
rhapsodise, while I refresh myself with tea-cakes.”
“I’m hungry too,” said Patty, “but then I always am.” She flew away
to dress, and soon the family sat in the glass-protected tea-room,
enjoying strange little Neapolitan cakes, that all declared the best in
the world.
After tea, Mr. Fairfield said they would have time for a short drive
before dinner. Patty was delighted at this prospect, and skipped away
for her hat and cloak. The rickety old cab made her laugh, but as they
drove along she saw none better, so decided that they were a style
peculiar to Naples.
They visited no museums or palaces, as Mr. Fairfield said it was but a
preliminary drive, and they must return for dinner.
So back they went soon, climbing the high hill slowly, though it seemed
to Patty not nearly so high nor so steep as the first time they drove
up. The long trip up in the elevator was unpleasant to Nan, who feared
an accident; but Patty said, “Nonsense! it’s just like the subway up on
end; and no danger of meeting another train.”
Dinner was rather a pretentious function in the hotel, so our party
donned evening dress, and came down at eight o’clock, to find the
gorgeous and brilliantly lighted dining-room well-filled. Lovely
strains of music came from an orchestra behind a screen of palms, and
the viands were of the best.
“It _is_ a lovely place,” said Nan; “I quite agree with you, Patty, and
I’m surprised at it all, too.”
After dinner they strolled about in the various attractive rooms, and
Patty thought she’d never tire of the beautiful view of Naples by
night, that was spread out below them. The street lights looked like
long strings of jewels, and the brightly lighted houses added to the
splendour of the scene. On the other side was the bay, misty now, and
pierced here and there with the shipping lights.
Long after they had gone to their rooms Patty sat at her window,
enthralled with the strange beauty, so different from all else she had
seen that it seemed like an enchanted land.
After several days of sight-seeing in and around Naples, which had
included trips to Vesuvius and to Amalfi, Mr. Fairfield called a
council of war to decide upon further plans.
“I’ve passage engaged, as you know,” he said, “for December first.
This will get us home about the middle of the month, and give us a
little time to get our breath before the Christmas holidays. But if
you two girls prefer, we can change our tickets and stay here till the
fifteenth.”
“That wouldn’t get us home by Christmas Day,” said Patty, thoughtfully.
“No, we’d be on the Atlantic on Christmas. But we must take one steamer
or the other.”
“Well, I’ll leave it to Nan,” said Patty; “but personally, I’d hate to
spend Christmas on an ocean liner! It doesn’t seem patriotic.”
“I agree to all that,” said Nan. “I love Naples, but I’d rather go
next week, and so be home in time to look after a little Christmas
celebration of some sort, than to stay here longer.”
“All right, then,” said Mr. Fairfield. “My inclinations are to go on
the first. So we’ll consider it settled, and put in all the fun we can
these few days that are left.”
So the three spent the rest of the time in seeing Naples thoroughly.
They visited the Aquarium, and the Royal Palace, and the National
Museum. They visited Capri, and they drove out to Posilipo, and
Camaldoli; and every day they grew more fond of the beautiful environs
that surrounded Naples. But their thoughts began to turn to home and
Christmas, and reunion of friends, and delightful as their pleasure
trip had been, it was with a satisfied feeling in their hearts that
they at last went aboard the great steamer that was to land them in New
York.
“Good-by, beautiful Italy,” said Patty, waving her handkerchief as they
steamed away. “I’ll come back some time,–but I think not very soon.
I’m a bit homesick for my ain countree.”
