Not the least among Josie's accomplishments, was her art of story-telling; she drew little word-pictures with audacious and dramatic effect, and her voice, if slightly guttural, immediately claimed an audience. Nancy wept and screamed with laughter, as she found herself unexpectedly in the company of Lady Miller,—and all her invalid airs; not to speak of several of the inmates of the Grand Hotel; and Josie's own aunt, Julia Ffinch, was also taken off to the life!
Nancy was dazzled, flattered, and enslaved. Josie Speyde was so clever, so gay, and entertaining: she read aloud scraps of delightful letters,—chiefly from men in foreign parts,—related stirring little episodes in her own past, and more or less opened the girl's grey-blue eyes, to their very widest extent.
CHAPTER XXI
ON COMO
Mrs. De Wolfe rarely remained long in one place; she assured her friends that she must have gipsy blood in her veins, and offered this idea as a sufficient excuse for her unexpected, and erratic movements. Weary of Locarno, she adjourned to familiar quarters at Cadenabbia, and as soon as she was comfortably installed in her favourite sitting-room, proceeded as usual, to scan the lists of visitors at the various hotels in the neighbourhood.
"I see the Gordons are over at Bellaggio," she remarked. "The Mackenzies are back at the Villa d'Este, the Wynnes are in this very hotel; and oh! what a piece of luck!—Dudley Villars is here too," and as she made this announcement, Mrs. De Wolfe turned an unusually beaming face upon her companion.
In answer to Nancy's glance of interrogation, she explained: "He is the son of my greatest friend; I held him at the font, tied his sashes, heard his prayers, and if I am not greatly mistaken, smacked him soundly.—I am very fond of Dudley."
"Do you think the smackings give him a certain claim?"
"No, indeed, poor fellow; he makes a stronger appeal than that!"