Part 29 (1/2)

”Oh, well, you can't tell till you've unpacked; and we're not responsible for what people happen to think, you know. Wait!” her aunt suddenly cried. She pulled open a drawer, and s.n.a.t.c.hed two ribbons from it, which she pinned to the sides of Lydia's hat, and tied in a bow under her chin; she caught out a lace veil, and drew that over the front of the hat, and let it hang in a loose knot behind. ”Now,” she said, pus.h.i.+ng her up to a mirror, that she might see, ”it's a bonnet; and I needn't say _any_thing!”

They went in Mrs. Erwin's gondola to the palace in which the English service was held, and Lydia was silent, as she looked shyly, almost fearfully, round on the visionary splendors of Venice.

Mrs. Erwin did not like to be still. ”What are you thinking of, Lydia?”

she asked.

”Oh! I suppose I was thinking that the leaves were beginning to turn in the sugar orchard,” answered Lydia faithfully. ”I was thinking how still the sun would be in the pastures, there, this morning. I suppose the stillness here put me in mind of it. One of these bells has the same tone as our bell at home.”

”Yes,” said Mrs. Erwin. ”Everybody finds a familiar bell in Venice.

There are enough of them, goodness knows. I don't see why you call it still, with all this clas.h.i.+ng and banging. I suppose this seems very odd to you, Lydia,” she continued, indicating the general Venetian effect.

”It's an old story to me, though. The great beauty of Venice is that you get more for your money here than you can anywhere else in the world.

There isn't much society, however, and you mustn't expect to be very gay.”

”I have never been gay,” said Lydia.

”Well, that's no reason you shouldn't be,” returned her aunt. ”If you were in Florence, or Rome, or even Naples, you could have a good time.

There! I'm glad your uncle didn't hear me say that!”

”What?” asked Lydia.

”Good time; that's an Americanism.”

”Is it?”

”Yes. He's perfectly delighted when he catches me in one. I try to break myself of them, but I don't always know them myself. Sometimes I feel almost like never talking at all. But you can't do that, you know.”

”No,” a.s.sented Lydia.

”And you have to talk Americanisms if you're an American. You mustn't think your uncle isn't obliging, Lydia. He is. I oughtn't to have asked him to go to church,--it bores him so much. I used to feel terribly about it once, when we were first married. But things have changed very much of late years, especially with all this scientific talk. In England it's quite different from what it used to be. Some of the best people in society are skeptics now, and that makes it quite another thing.” Lydia looked grave, but she said nothing, and her aunt added, ”I wouldn't have asked him, but I had a little headache, myself.”

”Aunt Josephine,” said Lydia, ”I'm afraid you're doing too much for me.

Why didn't you let me come alone?”

”Come alone? To church!” Mrs. Erwin addressed her in a sort of whispered shriek. ”It would have been perfectly scandalous.”

”To go to church alone?” demanded Lydia, astounded.

”Yes. A young girl mustn't go _any_where alone.”

”Why?”

”I'll explain to you, sometime, Lydia; or rather, you'll learn for yourself. In Italy it's very different from what it is in America.”

Mrs. Erwin suddenly started up and bowed with great impressiveness, as a gondola swept towards them. The gondoliers wore s.h.i.+rts of blue silk, and long crimson sashes. On the cus.h.i.+ons of the boat, beside a hideous little man who was sucking the top of an ivory-handled stick, reclined a beautiful woman, pale, with purplish rings round the large black eyes with which, faintly smiling, she acknowledged Mrs. Erwin's salutation, and then stared at Lydia.

”Oh, you may look, and you may look, and you may look!” cried Mrs.

Erwin, under her breath. ”You've met more than your match at last!

The Countess Tatocka,” she explained to Lydia. ”That was her palace we pa.s.sed just now,--the one with the iron balconies. Did you notice the gentleman with her? She always takes to those monsters. He's a Neapolitan painter, and ever so talented,--clever, that is. He's dead in love with her, they say.”