"Take me to the mountains!" I cried, suddenly aware that I was tired to exhaustion, that I had had no sleep and no breakfast. "Take me to the mountains; I have longed, longed for them all these days!"
I staggered a little, and closed my eyes.
When I opened them he was holding me in his arms, looking down anxiously at my face.
"Yes, we will go to the mountains; but first I shall take you home, and give you something to eat and drink, Elsie."
CHAPTER XII. THE BREAKING OF THE STORM.
"You are not afraid?" said Andrea, as we turned on to the Lung' Arno and came in sight of the house.
"No," I answered in all good faith, a little resenting the question.
After all, what was there to fear? This was the nineteenth century, when people's marriages were looked upon as their own affairs, and the paternal blessing—since it had ceased to be a sine quâ non—was never long withheld.