Mrs. Osborne was as delighted as her husband.
“I’ll get a photograph of that this very afternoon,” she said, “if there’s such a thing as a photograph shop in Venice. Dora, my dear, have they a photograph shop in Venice, or hasn’t that got here yet?”
Dora threw back her head, laughing.
“Oh, mother, how divine of you!” she said. “Considering I sent you literally hundreds of picture post cards when Claude and I were here in the autumn!”
“To be sure you did, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne cordially. “And it had gone clean out of my poor head. So a photograph of the fish market I’ll send to Per this very afternoon, if I have to turn over all their scrapbooks for it. Mr. O., you’ll never manage macaroni that way. Wrap it round your fork, my dear, as you see Claude doing, and in it goes without any bother.”
“Well, mother, you’re not so much of a hand at it yourself,” observed Mr. Osborne in self-defence. “If I’m to take pattern by Claude, you take pattern by Dora. Now, I call that an excellent dish. You couldn’t have it better done, not in your own house. What does he say to me, Dora, my dear? Banke, is it?”
“Bianco,” said Dora, “white. Will you have white wine or red?”
“That’s another word for Mrs. O.,” said her husband. “I told you she’d get it all off by heart in no time. Yes, I’ll have a go at the bianco. One wants something light and cool on a morning like this, especially if the true time is only half-past eleven.”
“I declare it makes me feel quite greedy,” said Mrs. Osborne, “but such an appetite as I have to-day I haven’t had since the middle of April. And what else have you seen this morning, Mr. Osborne? Give an account of the sights, my dear, or I shall think you’ve had no eye except for Dora.”
They waited in the cool greenness of the garden till the heat of the day began to abate, and then went all together in one gondola, at Mrs. Osborne’s particular wish, to begin the sights of Venice. It was in vain that Dora suggested that everybody would be much more comfortable if they took two gondolas, and arranged their rendezvous, for Mrs. Osborne’s heart was set on a family party and she wasn’t sure that she would trust Mr. O. with Dora alone any more that day. So, as badinage loomed on the horizon, Dora hastily and completely withdrew her opposition, and they all four squeezed into one gondola.