When the shadows were beginning to grow long and turn purple, we started back toward Florence, which lay before us in its valley cup, with all its spires and towers gilded by the last, yellow-gold sunlight.
I felt a little sad, going in; I don’t know why, unless perhaps it was because Miss Bannister and Miss Meek and Mr. Hemmingway had had so fine a time, and I kept wondering, as they talked—excitedly and as fast as they could and all at once—what they would do after we left.
But Fate and Mr. Wake helped them.
Early in March I heard from Miss Sheila that she would be in Florence some time during April, but I didn’t tell Mr. Wake of this, for since that day at Certosa we hadn’t talked much of Miss Sheila. And the very same day that I heard that, Leslie came to me, with one of the big, square envelopes in her hand that came so often since she had written Ben Forbes.
“Ben Forbes is coming over,” she stated.
“Isn’t that dandy?” I answered. I had been practising; I had added an hour and was doing five a day, at that time.
“I think so,” she said, looking down.
“Has he ever been here before?” I asked, and she responded quickly and with a little remnant of her old irritation in her voice.
“Heavens, yes, child!” she replied, “dozens of times, of course! But not lately. He says he realizes that he has been keeping himself too tightly moored, and that he wants a few weeks of real play. . . . He wants me to plan the whole time for him—”
“Well,” I said, “I think that’s great! What are you going to do?”