Mrs. Hugh Fraser

The Apennines—View from a Peak—Real Hospitality—Polenta—Woods of Sabina—A Hill Family—The Cook—A Queer Adventure—People of the South—A Night Festival in the Abruzzi—The Journey—The Old Organ—Marion Crawford’s Boys—Juvenile Theatricals.

How much our Italy of Rome and Naples owes to the Apennines! How gratefully should lovers of romance and history regard that mighty chain that runs, an inland sea of crag and peak, forest and ravine, between shore and shore! Physically and morally, it is the backbone of the country, the fortress of tradition, the nurse of what our modern cant calls, “Plain living and high thinking.” Its hard, yet beneficent, climate, with sharp delimitations of season, its passes so obdurate to the tainting allurements of railways, its hundreds of sturdy, self-contained little towns, each with its story of its own saints and heroes, its ancestry of tradition that laughs at the flight of centuries—all this has bred a race of men and women of whom modern Italy knows little, but who form the residue by which the mixed enfeebled masses of her cities and plains will in the end be saved. Faith is strong; morals, though often transgressed, still clear and commanding. New fads, make-believe religions, free love and race suicide presented as twin benefits to humanity, the worship of materialism—all the old crimes that come dressed up as new virtues—find no foothold here. The “pale-pink uplift” of these modern shams would be laughed to scorn by our people of Sabina and Abruzzi and CiocciarÌa. Their parish priests tramp round amongst them as friends and mentors. The “parroco” and the apothecary may be the only persons in a whole community who can read, but the child of ten knows the commandments of God and the Church, and the innovator who attempts to make little of these meets with a very cold reception. The people have many faults and many weaknesses, but they are all human ones, and, frankly, I would rather have to do with the man who has slain a rival or a sweetheart in a fit of jealous anger than with a railway magnate or a prophet of the Decadent. The murderer’s record is probably a good deal cleaner than theirs.

So my inheritance of Sabina has always been very precious to me. Many weary years have passed since I set foot there, but the remembrance of young days spent in those high rich solitudes comes still as a fresh breeze across the dusty wastes of the world, and very gladly shall I return to them before I die. I have travelled so far and seen such strange and endless varieties of scenery that I think I have a right to say that there are few places on earth where nature has done more to rejoice and strengthen the body and soul of man.

From Rome the Sabines are merely a noble chain of peaks, culminating in the calm Lion profile of the couchant “Lionessa,” her face to the north, waiting through the long blue days of summer for the crown of snow that the winter lays on her brow. The slopes and spurs that descend towards the Campagna are smiling enough—as they should be, turned everlastingly to the sun and the sea. One must pass beyond all that, climb by rough and narrow paths to the great tossed heart of the hills, and stand on some peak like Guadognolo to take in the amazing grandeur of the Sabines. Even from lower places—Olevano, for instance—you may look east and west and south and north, and feel as if you were standing on an island crag in an ocean of long sapphire billows rolling away, breaker beyond breaker, into infinity, a sea that in some moment of surpassing pride raised its breast too near the sky and froze to stone in that passion of ambition; and your heart, the heart of the native-born, tells you that every hollow between the breakers holds its rivers and lakes smothered in olives and vines and corn, its walled town and ancient Church, its old fortified farmhouses, dazzlingly white against the sun-warmed rock of the mounting ridge—farmhouses with broad brick loggias garlanded with festoons of scarlet and orange, the bursting red “pepperoni” as big as citrons, and strings of flame-coloured maize like golden spear-heads, all drying in the sun for the winter’s needs.

Stop at one of these houses and ask for hospitality, and you will find out what the word really means. I have often thought of it when I was sitting through huge official dinners where the great ones of the earth were arranging its destinies over the champagne and truffles—with the murder of a nation in their hearts. The commanded smile, and the cold watchful eyes—the men fencing with words for rapiers, and we women watching every play of the shrouded steel and pretending to talk amiable nothings to each other; the gasp of relief at parting, and the consignment to everlasting perdition of the adversary, which broke from our worried mate when the door of the brougham had been clapped to and we could sink back on the cushions as we rolled away! Then would return a vision of some halt in the hills at home, of the dark cavernous kitchen with its freshly sprinkled brick floor and its bunches of herbs hanging from the high blackened beams overhead shedding their dry fragrance on the air, so cool and refreshing on entering from the burning midday sunshine outside. “Favorisca!” cries the “Sposa”—she may be eighteen or eighty, but that is her title from her wedding day forward.—“Condescend to enter! Let the signori be accommodated!” The rush-bottomed chairs are set out on the loggia in the shade, the boys are sent to fetch ice-cool water from the well, and, as the bucket goes splashing down into the invisible flood and comes up all diamonds in the sun, “Sposa” brings out four or five heavy glasses, freshly rinsed, in the fingers of one hand and a straw-bound fiaschetta of her own wine in the other. “Vino sincero, signori miei!” she assures you as she sets it down on the deal table already spread with the clean cloth that smells of rosemary. Ay, a “sincere wine,” with no “dope” in its crimson or topaz depths, and the welcome is as sincere as the wine. She pours it out, smiling, her handsome head and rich costume standing out picturesquely against the dark doorway behind her, within which one of her girls is kneeling on the bricks, washing freshly pulled lettuce for your salad in a great copper bowl, hand-beaten and reflecting the light from every one of its red-bronze facets. Everything in the kitchen is of beaten copper; these people would as soon think of cooking in any other metal as of sleeping in cotton sheets—a degradation the poorest scorns to put up with.

“Sposa” disappears within the kitchen and one of the girls comes out to entertain the visitors while the dinner is cooking. She stands with one hand on the back of a chair, the other fingering her blue and yellow apron, pink with shyness, but devoured with curiosity. Every detail of one’s dress, every bit of jewellery is being taken in—to be described to all the other girls of the place when they meet at Church on Sunday—but she answers one’s questions with a confident smile. How old? Oh, “in seventeen”—that is, sixteen last birthday. Her name? Candiduccia, at the Signora’s service! Betrothed! A pinker flush and an indescribable little movement of the shoulders, and then down goes her head, while “MammÀ,” whose sharp ears have heard all, replies in her deep sonorous tones, from among the pots and pans: “A good youth, but he is getting a bad bargain! This lazy one has not spun half her linen yet. I had mine all spun and woven by the time I was fourteen! Here, thou! come and fetch the plates! The illustrious ones are hungry!”

Candiduccia dives into the kitchen, and a moment later your dinner is before you—a big dimpled omelet, trout from the stream fried in olive oil, and crisp salad in a big majolica bowl. Sposa cuts the fresh rough bread—first making the sign of the Cross over the loaf—and serves you cream cheese, made from goat’s milk, instead of butter. Butter and cow’s milk do not enter into the Sabina bill of fare; our mountain people do not care about these things, but it is a feast for the gods, all the same.

When the time comes to go, you give Sposa what you think right, and she takes it rather unwillingly, but very gratefully, and as you ride away she and her girls stand at the door and wave their hands and say, “La Madonna v’accompagni”; and the boys, young rascals, will race your horses to the foot of the hill or the turn in the road, knowing well that you will give them a few coppers for their very own as soon as you are out of sight of “MammÀ,” who, you may be sure, will never hear of the transaction.

If one is an invited guest at some important farmhouse, an elaborate feast is prepared, and there are heart-burnings if the guests do not eat heartily of everything. I remember once going with the Cavalettis to the “bene” of one of their tenants, for dinner—a really mediÆval repast which staggered even my robust young appetite. It began with the “polentata,” a curious first course which is de rigueur in Sabina when guests of honour are being entertained. The chief table was already set out with a dozen kinds of fresh and dried fruits, “alicetti” (the tiny local sardines), smoked ham, and home-made liqueurs, all intended to stimulate the appetite. But before sitting down to that we were led to a small pinewood table at one side of the room and requested to take our seats around it. Then the mistress of the house advanced with a huge cauldron of polenta, which, to my consternation, she poured out on the freshly scrubbed table-top, so deftly that it exactly covered the entire surface. I stared, wondering what was to happen next; but my companions took no notice of me, and the Marchese, whom his peasants adored—as did everybody else who knew him—leant back in his chair and discussed the condition of the game in the woods with “Sor Giacomo,” while the wife, a piece of new string in her hands, watched the polenta cool and fix to about the consistency of cream cheese. Then, suddenly leaning over my shoulder, she cut it swiftly across and across with the string in symmetrical divisions nearly a foot square, one for each person, solemnly handed us each a spoon, and, bowing gracefully, begged us to eat!

It was a searching preparation for a hearty meal!

On another occasion we were invited to dinner at the house of a country notable many miles away, but still connected with the Cavaletti domains. It was early autumn, and we had an enchanting ride in the bright cool morning through the deep woods, where the chestnut burrs came padding down on the moss with soft thuds as we passed, and here and there some delicate ash or birch was already flaming into orange with the first touch of the frost. They looked like torches alight in the forest. They are so deep and green, those woods of Sabina, rich with oak and chestnut, elm and beech, a fairyland of moss and fern below, a world of sun and shadow above! The flowers are very delicate, too, harebells like thin amethyst, and the dainty wild pansy that lifts her little startled head like a Louis XV beauty who has lost her way; and there are stars of Bethlehem, growing always apart and lonely, five white petals with a touch of greenish gold for a heart, swinging in the breeze on a long translucent stem; and wild strawberries—snowy flower and crimson berry springing side by side among the broad trefoil leaves; and wild garlic, a mass of spotless bloom, and magic elder with great posies of perfumed level rime; and fern so tall that one could lose oneself in it, seeking for the threaded turquoise of forget-me-nots that grow beneath; and thousands more, fragile, exquisite things blooming in the deep peace of the undergrowth, while far overhead the strong tree-tops laugh in the wind and take all the sun.

I remember how sorry I was when we left the woods behind that day and reached a tiny walled town with, of course, a Church, a piazza, a fountain, and one big house standing aggressively square to the street, a typical Italian house with as many windows as could possibly be put into it, all green-shuttered, and most of them balconied. That was all I saw, for as we drew rein at the entrance we were surrounded by the whole family, all grown-up men and women, who lifted us girls down from our saddles, took possession of all our belongings, and all but carried us up to a big cool room on the first floor, with many expressions of sympathy for our supposed fatigue after the long ride. I believe they thought us rather daring for venturing ourselves on the shaggy mountain ponies at all, for few Italian women in the country ever mount anything more frisky than a tried and sober donkey.

Having settled us on the “canapÉ”—a very large sofa covered with green and scarlet checks—and provided us with rosolio and cakes to keep us good, all the ladies disappeared together. The men were buzzing around the Marchese, who, like the lover of horses he was, insisted on seeing the animals housed and fed; then a kind of electric thrill ran through the house, the Signora and her daughters came to fetch us from the salone, and everybody moved towards the dining-room. I was a little surprised to see so few seats at the table, which was covered with every kind of dainty and very prettily arranged; but the matter was explained when it became evident that the ladies of the family were to wait upon us and their own men in approved feudal fashion. I say “ladies” advisedly, for these were people as far removed from the peasant class as they considered themselves from that of the Marchese. They had never worn the costume of the contadine; they belonged to the great respectable middle class, from which most of the professions are supplied; both men and women spoke without a trace of dialect, and their manners were perfect—but then, thank Heaven, Italy is the natural home of good manners! I shall never forget the gentle, unobtrusive sweetness of those women, as they moved about in perfect silence, in their black Sunday frocks and little bits of ancient jewellery, attending to all our wants so carefully and deftly, but refusing to take any part in the conversation. That was not what was expected of them!

The long elaborate feast had gone from “ante-pasto” and vermouth right through to the sweets; my girl friend and I looked at each other questioningly. We were growing fidgetty and wondered who was to give the signal to rise, since we were the only women at the table—when, to our dismay and despair, the whole meal began all over again! Course after course, in regular sequence, we had to sit it through and pretend to taste the new varieties of fish, flesh, and fowl which came in a steady stream from the kitchen. It was like some crazy dream! I think we had sat at that table nearly four hours before we were invited to take our coffee in the salone. The sun was sinking then, and, to our intense relief, the Marchese announced that we must be moving or we should not reach home that night. The farewells were elaborate, and our gratitude for all the trouble the dear people had taken was very real; they packed a whole hamper of ancient Roman dainties for us to take along lest we should faint by the way; but our joy when we got into the open air, with our faces towards home, was inexpressible. As we entered the woods—less alluring in the dusk than in the fresh morning hours—a shadowy fourth joined our party, a smiling little man on a very small donkey. In two minutes the Marchese had made friends with him and called out to us in English: “Girls, think up some compliments! This is the man who cooked the dinner. They sent twenty miles for him—and he wants to know if you liked it!”

A woman noted for the charm and variety of her entertainments once said to me: “I do try to give respectable parties, but somehow they always turn into school feasts!” I am afraid the same kind of thing happens to me in regard to serious subjects. With the best intentions in the world I start to tell the story of some great person who has kindled my admiration—and in the middle of the tale the sun strikes on my page—a child laughs across the street—or some old refrain comes lilting to my ears, and farewell to the historic train of thought! My hero or saint recedes into the shadows and relinquishes the canvas to a thousand amiable little sprites of memory, who hold it till they have frisked through the very last step of their dance!

I do not know why, on this sunny July morning, there should rise before me a picture of a dark old house in the steep street of a Sabina town, where we drew rein after a long day’s ride to ask for rooms. The night was falling, there was no inn in the place, and somebody had told us that perhaps the people here would take us in. Our party was that with which I left Castel Gandolfo some chapters ago—my stepfather, Marion, and the Hon. and Rev. G—— C——, who had already several times saved my life by stopping my runaway steed, a wall-eyed old crock given to me because he looked so reassuringly tame. He was quiet enough at that moment; we were both stiff and tired; and I slid to the ground, resolved not to go a step further, whatever the people of the house should say. The padrona came down and looked us over critically. Yes, she could take in the gentlemen if they would all sleep in one room, but it was impossible to receive the signorina—there was really nowhere to put her! I replied by walking into the house, and sitting down on the first chair I could find, and defying her to turn me out. She stood and looked at me, considering. “Well,” she said at last, “there is a room—it belongs to my little boy—perhaps he will not come home to-night. Yes, you may sleep there, Poverina! I see you are tired out.”

She led me down a long twisting passage and threw open a door, holding the brass “lucerna” high to light me in. I saw a bed and a chair, and what I took to be a highly variegated wallpaper. “It will do beautifully,” I said. “Tell the gentlemen that I don’t want any supper—I am going straight to bed!”

“Buon riposo, bella mia!” (A good rest, my beautiful!) she replied, and shutting the door tramped away till her footsteps were lost in the distance. Then I looked round. “What a funny room for a little boy!” I thought. Guns and hunting knives hung on racks all about, and what I had thought was wallpaper turned out to be a gigantic collection of the pictures off the French match-boxes, which had just begun to find their way into our part of the world, and which were not admitted into our house because they were so improper. The little boy had covered the walls with them from top to bottom! Well, it was none of my business, and I prepared to lie down and forget them, but when I went to lock the door I found that it had no key and would hardly close at all. Fatigue, however, got the better of nervousness—it was a respectable house, after all.

I was almost ready to get into bed, when a heavy step came along the passage, accompanied by the cheerful whistling of an old opera air. I sprang up, too late to prevent the door being thrown wide open—and found myself staring at a tall young man in town clothes and a red tie, who jumped back as if he had been shot. I screamed—he swore—and then we both broke into peals of laughter. As soon as he could get his breath he apologised abjectly for the intrusion—“MammÀ” had not told him about any guests—I was a thousand times welcome to his room—and would I permit him to look for some necessary articles before he relieved me of the inconvenience of his presence? I tried to bow with proper dignity, sitting on the edge of the bed with a cloak around me, and he scuttled about, dived into various drawers for garments, tobacco, matches, and took his leave with careful courtesy, never having even glanced in my direction after the first startling encounter. The country dandy was quite as much of a “blue-rose” as the Austrian Prince who earned his name among the girls in Rome—but that paladin belongs to another story.

As one travels southward the character of the people changes, and in the later years of my life I have felt more at home with my fellow-beings of the South than with the inhabitants of Romagna. Their outlook is simpler, more indulgent, and their religious faith far more fervent. I think the southern custom of going on pilgrimages was a very valuable one to the contadini of the “Regno.” It used to be rare to find middle-aged people of the labouring class in the province, who had not travelled a little in that way and thus learnt that the world was not confined to their own small town or hamlet. I suppose the good custom will die out in time, like so many others, but it will not suffer much diminution while such wonderful new centres of attraction spring up as, for instance, the “Santuario” of New Pompeii, which I described in a former book.[11] But many an unforgotten shrine in the more remote hills has, like La Mentorana in the Sabines, its one day or night of glory in the year, when the peasants come in great bands, even from far away, and the chants and litanies go up all night long in and around some dim old Church. Such a festival takes place at San Salvatore in the Abruzzi, in the late summer, and is the scene of a great gathering of the people of the Penisola Sarrcutina.

A night expedition is always alluring; and, besides, I had wanted to see this particular festa for years, so I took one of the servants with me—a broad-shouldered woman of the people, strong enough to carry me if need be—and we set out, in a carrozzella, on a moonless night towards nine o’clock. Very soon we had left Sorrento and its lights behind and were climbing by steep narrow roads into the wild mountains that cluster round Monte Sant’ Angelo. The chain of the Abruzzi that runs out into the sea as the backbone of the Penisola rises sharp and high from the rounded cup of the Piano di Sorrento, and, elsewhere, gives way but little on either side to the needs of men. From the “Piano” and the narrowing strip of level land, the cliffs facing the north plunge clear into the water which has worn them into huge caves, each with its tiny cove of sand, divided from one another by great outstanding buttresses of rock. As soon as one turns inland one is lost in the twisting defiles that scar the mountains through and through; and the deep old roads, narrow and steep, crawl up away from the regions of vines and olives till they reach wild, empty highlands, where only the hardiest shrubs and flowers will grow. It is an impressive experience to travel through these forgotten roads on a starlit night, further and further from the sound of the sea and the haunts of men. The loneliness is enormous, earth recedes from sight, and one is conscious of very little except that unfathomable sky overhead, dripping and sprayed with live silver to its furthest faintest depths, while some gorgeous planet of our own system wheels its way between crag and crag as one moves along. Broom and wild rosemary reach out from the wall of rock to brush your face; a tang of bitter sweetness, clear as an exclamation, fills your nostrils for an instant, and you know that you are passing a clump of immortelles hidden in a cleft you cannot see. And then the wild power of it all goes to your head; you are not a modern mortal with a thousand anchors fastening you to the scrap heap of the workaday world, but a new-born princess of romance, travelling through the hills of fairyland to take possession of your unknown, enormous castle; its thousand windows are glowing gold beyond that last peak, all lighted up for your reception; in its deep courts and airy bowers invisible subjects will minister to your wants. In a high tower looking south all the great books in the world are waiting to be read; there is a terrace a hundred feet from the ground, perfumed and trellised, where you can watch the stars; and not a single creature in the whole world will ever find the way to the castle!

“QuÌ si vÀ a piedi, ‘cellenza!” said Maria, climbing down from her seat. The little carriage could go no further, and I returned suddenly to earth and meekly followed her example. The sound of voices and footsteps began to fill the air, and we came on shadowy groups resting by the wayside, pilgrims who had come from far on foot. Then at a sudden turn we were in the piazza, and all outer things, sky and stars and peaks, were swallowed up in blackness, for the piazza was one blaze of orange light, from hundreds of torches, burning luridly and outlining the dark faÇade of the Church with red-gold gleams that rose and sank like dancing waters; turning a face here, a costume there, to unearthly brightness and then leaping away in tall tongues of fire, to be lost in the mist of smoke overhead. The crowd was so thick that we could scarcely reach the Church, from the open doors of which a flood of broad yellow radiance streamed out over the heads of the pilgrims who knelt in serried ranks on the portico, all faces turned to the interior, whence streamed that soft illumination. When we stood on the threshold I saw that it came from the High Altar, which seemed to be floating in a vast “mandorla” of light. Hundreds and hundreds of wax candles, each a tongue of steady golden flame, surrounded the Tabernacle and reached, in an oval of fire, almost to the roof. The walls of the Church were covered with white draperies, to which were fastened wreaths and garlands and single sprays of flowers, a delicate ornamentation as old as ancient Rome and always used in the Penisola; and every pilaster was panelled from top to bottom with crimson damask trimmed with gold—those precious strips of drapery which the well-to-do families hoard from generation to generation and lend to the different Churches as required. From door to Altar rails the Church was packed with kneeling worshippers, and a great hush prevailed, for midnight had struck and Mass was about to begin.

My companion, threading her way with coaxing apologies, pulled me along till she found a place where we could both kneel by a pillar at the top of the Church, and just as we had settled ourselves a sweet-voiced old organ, high up in an invisible gallery, sent out the first notes of the chant, filling the little ancient building with a flood of music—not the usual gay tunes that Italians love to hear in Church, but solemn thrilling airs from some old Mass that I had never heard before. The singers had been brought from far, and the voices were of the best, which is saying a great deal in South Italy, where everybody is born with “a harp in his throat.” Somehow it was one of the most beautiful services I ever attended. The absorbed devotion of the people, the reverent manner of the Celebrant and his assistants, the full-throated responses that were taken up by the kneeling crowd outside, where every sound was hushed the moment Mass began—it was the very essence of whole-hearted, loving worship.

A number of persons went to Communion; there was a rousing sermon, and then came much jollification in the piazza, crammed with little booths that looked like altars of flame themselves, the wildly flaring torches lighting up strange wares—long rosaries of yellow nuts that swung in the wind, artificial roses set in a whirl of spun glass, each with its pin to stick into hat or braids of hair, holy pictures in the crude reds and blues that the people love, sweetmeats and honey-cakes and fruit. Outside and everywhere beyond, the blackness of night, and on that tiny plateau of the rocks a little whirlpool of life and fire.

We crept away, I and my Maria, and after some trouble found our carrozzella and its driver, and started for home just as the darkness thinned before the dawn. It was cold enough in the mountain roads then, and I was glad to reach the lower levels and the hospitable gate of the villa by the sea.

I think it was in that same year that my brother’s two boys, enthusiastically aided by all the sailors, invented a kind of switchback railway which really carried passengers! They got four or five little trucks built—without saying a word to any of us—and, coupling them together, started at the outer gate of the villa and raced down the long paved incline which led, between walls covered with stephanotis and jessamine, to the round garden in front of the house. Here the encircling walk was also paved, and the impetus of the downward rush carried the train once or twice round the whole space, after which Luigi and Antonio submissively dragged it all the way to the front gate again. There was quite an excitement in whirling round the corners, and for some days every member of the family had to get into the cars and be carried along, an occasional upset only adding to the delight of the experience, as far as Harold and Bertie were concerned. Then they built a “ristorante” at one point, and installed their sisters to dispense lemonade and bonbons to the weary travellers, who were supposed to have come from an immense distance. Of course the travellers had to pay—such an undertaking costs money! Then, as the autumn days drew in, there were night excursions, when the train, with headlights on, came roaring down the garden to a great accompaniment of hoots and whistles, quite an alarming thing to meet if one were taking a stroll in the twilight.

The “ferro-via” was a great success, but the owners of the line panted for more public recognition. We elders did not care to risk ourselves in the trucks after dark, and for two or three evenings, as we sat over our tea in the drawing-room, we wondered rather at the steady persistence with which the train rushed backwards and forwards outside. The boys were unusually silent about their exploits now, but from their bright eyes and their sisters’ obstinate refusal to answer questions, we could not help fancying that some kind of mischief was afoot. Then one evening, just before dinner, Bonifazio came into the drawing-room, looking very scared.

“Signora mia,” he exclaimed to my sister-in-law, “do you know what the Signorini are doing? The entire town is gathered in the piazzale outside the gate, and the young gentlemen are taking all the passengers the cars will hold, twice round the garden—for two sous the trip! And the young ladies are actually selling refreshments to these contadini! For the love of Heaven, let the Signora stop this scandal! The people are fighting to get into the cars!”

It would be interesting to know what is really going on in children’s minds—those fairy plans which they weave steadily through lessons and play and would rather die than confide to their elders! I remember a surprise that my small brother and sister sprung upon the family before I was married—a scheme all worked and irrevocably launched before accident revealed it to any of the grown-ups in the house. Daisy was about nine years old, and Arthur, her submissive slave, just over seven. It was the height of the winter season, and there was the usual rush of engagements for weeks ahead, when at some afternoon reception a friend of my mother’s said to her: “We are so glad next Thursday is free! We shall be so much interested to see your children’s play!”

“My children’s play? There must be some mistake,” my mother replied. “I have not issued any invitations for theatricals!”

“Your little people have,” the lady retorted. “Look at this!”

And she produced a card on which was written in a nice round hand: “Miss Terry and Master Arthur Terry request the pleasure of Mrs. ——’s company on Thursday next at nine o’clock. (Theatrakulls.)”

My mother’s feelings were not to be described! Within ten minutes three or four other people smilingly informed her that they, too, had been invited and certainly meant to come. There was nothing for it but to go straight home and find out what the little monkeys had committed us to. On being sternly questioned, Daisy, with the imperturbable calmness that distinguished her even then, produced a list of some two hundred names, culled from Mamma’s visiting book, and said: “These are the people we have asked. We chose the ones we liked, of course. I have composed the play and it will be most interesting. Arthur is in love with me, Sofia is my rival—I have one or two other children in it, but they are rather stupid, so I shall have to do most of the acting myself. Don’t worry me, please—you have nothing to do but order the supper and send for the chairs!”

Of course we submitted. Everything had been done in order; Daisy (Arthur could not write well enough as yet) must have devoted her playtime, for days, to writing out the invitations, which the servants had carried to their addresses, never doubting but that the Signora’s authorisation had been obtained. We were not allowed to see the last rehearsals even, the drop-curtain of the little theatre in the ballroom being jealously closed while they went on. I tried to get taken on as manager—no use! “I know exactly what I am about,” said my small sister. “I haven’t watched you grown-ups all these years for nothing! It’s going to be a great success!”

Which it certainly was! Daisy’s speeches were a little long, because some of the others forgot their parts and she had to bridge their silences by expressing their sentiments for them. “I know what you would say, dear friend—your heart is true, but you fear the vengeance of the Marquis! Oh, I understand!” And so on. Then, at the critical moment of the love scene, Arthur got stage-fright, and the Marquise, who was naturally taller than her adorer, stooped towards him and energetically whispered, “Go down on your knees and kiss my hand this minute, stupid!” at which a roar of merriment swept through the room, to end in a storm of applause as the small boy, dropping on one knee, gave the hand a smacking kiss and exclaimed ardently, “My Angel!”

Oh, yes, it was a great success! The little Marquise was a born actress, and carried it all off so well that the guests declared they had never enjoyed an evening so much. But we “grown-ups” had passed some anxious moments; and when it was all over and the triumphant performers had had all the applause, as well as all the cake and goodies they wanted, we extracted a sleepy promise that we should be at least warned the next time they asked the town to a play!