“Oh, don’t bother about the station. I shan’t need it again till I go home, so let it remain as it is.”
“Very well, then; now you two be ready when I come back at noon, and we’ll lunch downstairs.”
Mr. Fairfield went away, and Patty and Nan went to their work of unpacking.
Patty was of an orderly nature, and really enjoyed putting her things neatly away in the wardrobes and drawers, of which there were plenty. She was accustomed to wait on herself, and so declined the offers of help from the willing but unintelligible maid who spoke no English.
“I suppose you’re offering to help me,” said Patty, smiling at her, “but I can’t speak Italian, and I’d rather do things myself anyway.”
The little maid did not quite understand the words, but she gathered Patty’s meaning, and tripped away to make similar offers to Nan. Nan couldn’t talk Italian either, but she was inclined to have help, so, by the aid of smiles and gestures, she quite made herself understood and her rooms were soon in order.
“What a mess!” she exclaimed, as a couple of hours later she went to Patty’s room and found that young woman in the midst of a sea of dresses, hats, slippers, and toilet accessories of all sorts.
“A lovely mess,” returned Patty, placidly. “I’ll soon straighten it out. But I never could do it, with a Choctaw-speaking Roman trying to jabber out help.”
“Lucretia isn’t Choctaw; we understood each other perfectly, without words, and she’s an awfully well-trained maid.”
“Is her name Lucretia? Is she of the old Borgia crowd? Now, she’ll murder us in our sleep!”