Jean read hers over, seated in the wide window nook. Bab’s letter was full of the usual studio gossip, and begging her to come for a visit at Easter. But Cousin Beth’s letter was brimful of the coming trip. She wrote she would meet Jean in Boston, and they would motor over if the roads were good.
“Plan on staying at least two months, for it will be work as well as play. I was afraid you might be lonely with just us, so I have invited Carlota to spend her week ends here. You will like her, I am sure. She is a young girl we met last year in Sorrento. Her father is an American sculptor and married a really lovely Contessa. They are deep in the war relief work now, and have sent Carlota over here to study and learn the ways of her father’s country. She is staying with her aunt, the Contessa di Tambolini, the oddest, dearest, little old grande dame you can imagine. You want to call her the Countess Tambourine all the time, she tinkles so. It just suits her, she is so gay and whimsical and brilliant. Come soon, and don’t bother about buying a lot of new clothes. I warn you that you will be in a paint smock most of the time.”
“I wonder what her other name is,” Jean said, folding up the letter. “One of our teachers at the Art Class in New York was telling us her memories of Italy, and she mentioned some American sculptor who had married an Italian countess and lived in a wonderful old villa, at Sorrento, of a dull warm tan color, with terraces and rose gardens and fountains, and nice crumbly stone seats. She went to several of his receptions. Wouldn’t it be odd if he turned out to be Carlota’s father. It’s such a little world, isn’t it, Father?”
“We live in circles, dear,” Mr. Robbins smiled over the wide library table at her flushed eager face. “Little eddies of congeniality where we are constantly finding others with the same tastes and ways of living. Here’s a letter from Ralph, saying they will start east in May, and stay along through the summer, taking Mrs. Hancock and Piney back with them.”
“Piney’ll simply adore the trip way out west,” exclaimed Jean. “She’s hardly talked of anything else all winter but his promise to take them there, and Mrs. Hancock’s just the opposite. She declares her heart is buried right up in the little grave yard behind the church in the Hancock and Trowbridge plot.”
“She’ll go as long as both children are happy,” Mrs. Robbins said. “She has an odd little vein of sentiment in her that makes her cling to the land she knows best and to shrink from the unknown and untried, but I’m sure she’ll go. She’s such a quiet, retiring little country mother to have two wild swans like Honey and Piney, who are regular adventurers. I’ll drive over and have a talk with her as soon as my own bird of passage is on her way.”
Wednesday of the following week was set for Jean’s flitting. This gave nearly a week for preparations, and Kit plunged into them with a zest and vigor that made Jean laugh.
“Well, so little ever happens up here we just have to make the most of goings and comings,” said Kit, warmly. “And besides, I’m rather fond of you, you blessed, skinny old dear, you.”
“Of course, we’re all glad for you,” Helen put in in her serious way. “It’s an opportunity, Mother says, and I suppose we’ll all get one in time.”
Jean glanced up as they sat around the table the last evening, planning and talking. Out in the side entry stood her trunk, packed, locked, and strapped, ready for the early trip in the morning. Doris was trying her best to nurse a frost bitten chicken back to life out by the kitchen stove, where Joe mended her skates for her, but Kit and Helen were freely bestowing advice on the departing one.