"I've no music!"
"Can't you hum it? Miss Walters, may Carmel show us a Sicilian dance?"
"By all means, if she will!" acquiesced the head-mistress.
"Go on Carmel!" commanded the girls. "Show us how it goes!"
Thus urged, Carmel rose from her seat, and went on to the terrace at the foot of the steps. She looked for a moment or two at the crimson slope of flowers and the shining lake, as if to put herself into the right mental atmosphere, then, humming a lively but haunting tune, she began her old-world southern dance.
It was wonderful dancing, every action of her alert young body was so beautifully graceful that you forgot her modern costume and could imagine her a nymph in classic draperies. Her arms kept motion with her tripping feet, and both were in time with the tune that she was trilling. It seemed a spontaneous expression of gaiety as natural as the flight of a dragon-fly or the sporting of a kitten. Her dark hair flew out behind her, her eyes shone and sparkled, and her cheeks flushed with unwonted color. For the moment she looked the very incarnation of joy, and might have been Artemis surprised in a Sicilian grove. It was such a fresh aspect of Carmel that the girls stared at her in amazement. From Princess she had changed to Oread, and they did not know her in this new mood. They gave her performance a hearty clap, however, as she stopped and sank panting on to the steps.
"You'll have to turn dancing-mistress, Carmel, and give the others a lesson in your Pastorale," said Miss Walters. "It's a pretty step, and we shall ask you to do it again when we give our garden fête in aid of the 'Waifs and Strays.' Don't you think our English scenery can compare favorably even with your beloved Sicily?"
"It's very beautiful," admitted Carmel, "but I miss Etna in the distance."
"Then you won't yield us the palm?" laughed Miss Walters.
"I love it all, I do indeed, but Sicily will always be the most beautiful place in the world to me, because it's home!"