The Collected Works of Susan Coolidge: 7 Novels, 35+ Short Stories, Essays & Poems (Illustrated)
the outside, we could not do better, I should think.”
“Oh, I do hope all the rooms are not already taken,” said Katy, who had fallen in love at first sight with the Pension Suisse. She felt quite oppressed with anxiety as they rang the bell.
The Pension Suisse proved to be quite as charming inside as out. The thick stone walls made deep sills and embrasures for the casement windows, which were furnished with red cushions to serve as seats and lounging-places. Every window seemed to command a view, for those which did not look toward the sea looked toward the mountains. The house was by no means full, either. Several sets of rooms were to be had; and Katy felt as if she had walked straight into the pages of a romance When Mrs. Ashe engaged for a month a delightful suite of three, a sitting-room and two sleeping-chambers, in a round tower, with a balcony overhanging the water, and a side window, from which a flight of steps led down into a little walled garden, nestled in among the masonry, where tall laurestinus and lemon trees grew, and orange and brown wallflowers made the air sweet. Her contentment knew no bounds.
“I am so glad that I came,” she told Mrs. Ashe. “I never confessed it to you before; but sometimes.—when we were sick at sea, you know, and when it would rain all the time, and after Amy caught that cold in Paris—I have almost wished, just for a minute or two at a time, that we hadn’t. But now I wouldn’t not have come for the world! This is perfectly delicious. I am glad, glad, glad we are here, and we are going to have a lovely time, I know.”
They were passing out of the rooms into the hall as she said these words, and two ladies who were walking up a cross passage turned their heads at the sound of her voice. To her great surprise Katy recognized Mrs. Page and Lilly.
“Why, Cousin Olivia, is it you?” she cried, springing forward with the cordiality one naturally feels in seeing a familiar face in a foreign land.
Mrs. Page seemed rather puzzled than cordial. She put up her eyeglass and did not seem to quite make out who Katy was.
“It is Katy Carr, mamma,” explained Lilly. “Well, Katy, this is a surprise! Who would have thought of meeting you in Nice!”
There was a decided absence of rapture in Lilly’s manner. She was prettier than ever, as Katy saw in a moment, and beautifully dressed in soft brown velvet, which exactly suited her complexion and her pale-colored wavy hair.
“Katy Carr! why, so it is,” admitted Mrs. Page. “It is a surprise indeed. We had no idea that you were abroad. What has brought you so far from Tunket,—Burnet, I mean? Who are you with?”
“With my friend Mrs. Ashe,” explained Katy, rather chilled by this cool reception.
“Let me introduce you. Mrs. Ashe, these are my cousins Mrs. Page and Miss Page. Amy,—why where is Amy?”
Amy had walked back to the door of the garden staircase, and was standing there looking down upon the flowers.
Cousin Olivia bowed rather distantly. Her quick eye took in the details of Mrs. Ashe’s travelling-dress and Katy’s dark blue ulster.
“Some countrified friend from that dreadful Western town where they live,” she said to herself. “How foolish of Philip Carr to try to send his girls to Europe! He can’t afford it, I know.” Her voice was rather rigid as she inquired,—
“And what brings you here?—to this house, I mean?”
“Oh, we are coming to-morrow to stay; we have taken rooms for a month,” explained Katy. “What a delicious-looking old place it is.”
“Have you?” said Lilly, in a voice which did not express any particular pleasure. “Why, we are staying here too.”
Chapter VII.
The Pension Suisse
“What do you suppose can have brought Katy Carr to Europe?” inquired Lilly, as she stood in the window watching the three figures walk slowly down the sands. “She is the last person I expected to turn up here. I supposed she was stuck in that horrid place—what is the name of it?—where they live, for the rest of her life.”
“I confess I am surprised at meeting her myself,” rejoined Mrs. Page. “I had no idea that her father could afford so expensive a journey.”
“And who is this woman that she has got along with her?”
“I have no idea, I’m sure. Some Western friend, I suppose.”
“Dear me, I wish they were going to some other house than this,” said Lilly, discontentedly. “If they were at the Rivoir, for instance, or one of those places at the far end of the beach, we shouldn’t need to see anything of them, or even know that they were in town! It’s a real nuisance to have people spring upon you this way, people you don’t want to meet; and when they happen to be relations it is all the worse. Katy will be hanging on us all the time, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, my dear, there is no fear of that. A little repression on our part will prevent her from being any trouble, I’m quite certain. But we must treat her politely, you know, Lilly; her father is my cousin.”
“That’s the saddest part of it! Well, there’s one thing, I shall not take her with me every time we go to the frigates,” said Lilly, decisively. “I am not going to inflict a country cousin on Lieutenant Worthington, and spoil all my own fun beside. So I give you fair warning, mamma, and you must manage it somehow.”
“Certainly, dear, I will. It would be a great pity to have your visit to Nice spoiled in any way, with the squadron here too, and that pleasant Mr. Worthington so very attentive.”
Unconscious of these plans for her suppression, Katy walked back to the hotel in a mood of pensive pleasure. Europe at last promised to be as delightful as it had seemed when she only knew it from maps and books, and Nice so far appeared to her the most charming place in the world.
Somebody was waiting for them at the Hotel des Anglais,—a tall, bronzed, good-looking somebody in uniform, with pleasant brown eyes beaming from beneath a gold-banded cap; at the sight of whom Amy rushed forward with her long locks flying, and Mrs. Ashe uttered an exclamation of pleasure. It was Ned Worthington, Mrs. Ashe’s only brother, whom she had not met for two years and a half; and you can easily imagine how glad she was to see him.
“You got my note then?” she said after the first eager greetings were over and she had introduced him to Katy.
“Note? No. Did you write me a note?”
“Yes; to Villefranche.”
“To the ship? I shan’t get that till tomorrow. No; finding out that you were here is just a bit of good fortune. I came over to call on some friends who are staying down the beach a little way, and dropping in to look over the list of arrivals, as I generally do, I saw your names; and the porter not being able to say which way you had gone, I waited for you to come in.”
“We have been looking at such a delightful old place, the Pension Suisse, and have taken rooms.”
“The Pension Suisse, eh? Why, that was where I was going to call. I know some people who are staying there. It seems a pleasant house; I’m glad you are going there, Polly. It’s first-rate luck that the ships happen to be here just now. I can see you every day.”
“But, Ned, surely you are not leaving me so soon? Surely you will stay and dine with us?” urged his sister, as he took up his cap.
“I wish I could, but I can’t to-night, Polly. You see I had engaged to take some ladies out to drive, and they will expect me. I had no idea that you would be here, or I should have kept myself free,” apologetically. “Tomorrow I will come over early, and be at your service for whatever you like to do.”
“That’s