"It wasn't so very much to do," said Angela, laughingly, but with a tone of yielding in her voice. "He had only to go to his godfather and ask him for some tickets."
"Ungrateful child," I exclaimed, "is there any service that you would consider too great to be performed at your behest? I firmly believe that if Ludovico should bring you a wagon-load of roses from Queen Margherita's own garden you would simply raise your eyebrows and say, 'How charming! I never had quite so many roses; I hope you have been at no inconvenience in gathering them.'"
"What a picture!" exclaimed Angela, "and what an imagination you have, Margaret! And what darlings you both are!" With which the spoiled child kissed us both, and dismissed us to our slumbers.
"That is what comes of being a beauty," said Zelphine, "but with Angela's charm and cleverness nothing is really too good for her."
"Zelphine, you are quite as bad as the Italians over Angela's blonde head. I only trust that we may get her home without any love-affairs or duels; but she must go on Monday, coûte que coûte!"
April 10th.
Something has just happened that has forcibly impressed me with the wisdom of your favorite proverb about crossing bridges before one comes to them—a most delightful happening this! Dr. M. came in this evening to say that Rosalie had two tickets for the tribunes, and would I go with her? Of course I accepted with great alacrity, and we are all to set forth together to-morrow. Dr. M. and Ludovico will accompany us to the entrance to the church, when they and the other male barbarians will find such places as they may. I really feel sorry for Dr. M., who may never be here again upon such an occasion; but then he would probably not be willing to change places with any one of us, even with Angela, and I—well, I have never been quite so glad to be a woman as I am now. We do have some privileges, although Miss Susan B. Anthony would say that all of them, when weighed in the balance against the right of suffrage, are lighter than vanity.
Miss Dean informed me at dinner last night that the Earl and Countess of Denbigh, with their two young sons, have come to assist at the service to-morrow. From the expression of awe in her enchanting voice, I am sure that my charming neighbor feels that the pension and everything in it is honored by the presence of this peer and peeress of ancient lineage; but as these noble folk lunch and dine in their own parlor, we have only the uplifting consciousness that they pass through the same hall and go up and down in the same ascenseur (when it runs at all) upon their goings out and comings in. This, however, seems to fill to the brim the cup of content of my Irish friend.
April 11th.
We were all up betimes this morning, and were on our way to St. Peter's before eight o'clock. I must here confess to a quite pardonable pride in the appearance of my companions. Zelphine and Mrs. M., in long black gowns which accentuated their tall slenderness, with handsome lace at the neck and sleeves and the regulation black lace scarf most coquettishly draped over their white pompadours, looked like fair and noble ladies of the court of Louis Quinze on their way to mass at the Sainte Chapelle or Notre Dame. Angela, who owned no black gown, had borrowed one of mine, which she had tucked in and let out and generally readjusted until it became her as everything does that she puts on her graceful figure. The sombreness of her dress and veil served to bring out the gold of the girl's hair and the whiteness of her skin, and with a delicate flush on her cheek, like the inside of a shell, she looked like one of the beings whose name she bears.