“Sit down here and talk to me,” he said, arranging a chair for her. “I don’t care for dancing at all.”
“Well, upon my word!” said Patty. “But I do care for dancing.”
“Yes, I know you do. But just now you’re going to stay right here with me; so you may as well accept it gracefully.”
“Why should I want to do that?” said Patty, who always rebelled at coercion. “Everybody else is smiling and gay, while you look like ‘cloudy, with showers’!”
“Oh, no, I don’t,” said Mr. Homer, smiling; “and now what shall I talk to you about?”
“Italy,” said Patty, promptly. “I’m going there soon. I don’t know a thing about it, and I want to know it all. What’s it like?”
“Well, Italy is like a lovely Monday in the spring; when they’ve washed the sky, and blued it, and hung it up in the sunshine to dry.”
“That’s pretty,” said Patty, approvingly. “And are there trees?”
“Yes; trees tied together with long ropes of grapevines. They look like Alpine travellers roped together for safety.”