They parted from the little Cecilia at sunrise, but with promises on both sides of a speedy meeting among the hills of Tuscany.
The old Count, with the child’s hand clasped in his, paused as he reached the gangway, at the foot of which the triumphant Giuditta was awaiting them, and pointed toward the rosy east which was flushing the beautiful bay a deep crimson.
“Signorina,” he said in his careful French, made more careful by his effort to control his voice,—“Signorina, it is to you that I owe a new dawn,—to you and to your honoured mother.”
Then, as Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Grey approached, to tell them that everything was in readiness for them to land, Blythe turned, with the light of the sunrise in her face, and said, under her breath, so that only her mother could hear:
“O Mumsey! How beautiful the world is, with you and me right in the very middle of it!”
Artful Madge
CHAPTER I
THE PRIZE CONTEST