"I have often thought that to be a flower in a conservatory would be a happy lot," observed Janet. "One could have of the perfumes, sit still all the time, and never be out in the rain."
"I trust, Miss Trescott, you have not often been exposed to inclement weather?" said the Professor, looking up.
He meant rain; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon herself to answer him, always meant metaphor. "Not yet," she answered; "no inclement weather yet for my child, because I have stood between. But the time may come when, that barrier removed—" Here she waved her little claw-like hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of sepulchral suggestiveness, and took refuge in coffee.
The Professor, who supposed the conversation still concerned the weather, said a word or two about the excellent English umbrella he had purchased in London, and then returned to his discourse. "The first mountains behind us," he remarked, "are between three and four thousand feet high; the second chain attains a height of eight and nine thousand feet, and, stretching back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. Our name is Alpes Maritimes; we run along the coast in this direction" (indicating it on the table-cloth with his spoon), "and at Genoa we become the Apennines. The winter climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its protected situation; cold winds from the north and northeast, coming over these mountains behind us, pass far above our heads, and advance several miles over the sea before they fall into the water. The mistral, too, that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, and sharp, bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown here, kept off by a fortunately placed shoulder of mountain running down into the sea on the west."
"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener beginning.
"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, but, as usual, not noticing from whom the encouragement came—"yes; and the sirocco is even pleasant here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of water. The characteristics of a Mentone winter are therefore sunshine, protection from the winds, and dryness. It is, in truth, remarkably dry."
"Very," said Inness.
"I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked Baker.
Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths reprovingly. Mrs. Trescott said, "Dry? Do you find it so? But you are young, whereas I have reminiscences. Tears are not dry."