“Um, not all the time!” admitted Mr. Alexander. “When I saw that boy’s home and his sick mother in bed, I hunted up a woman in the house and made her go out for some things to eat. It seems they ain’t had any money and so went hungry until she could work. I told the woman—but I reckon she didn’t understand me—that she could thank the dog for the food and help she got from me. Then I had to hurry back here.”
The tourists were on the vessel before Mrs. Alexander stopped nagging her spouse and allowed him to enjoy the sail across the Ionian Sea. It was a beautiful trip for the others in the party; they saw the blue sky reflected in the bluer water, inhaled the perfume of thousands of flowers blossoming riotously on the land and wafted by the balmy breezes across the Sea, and they wondered if it were really true that but a few days before, they were rushing frantically from an earthquake in Rome! The present peace and calm were so different an experience—almost as if they were in another world.
The first sight of Athens, from the sea, was very impressive to the girls; they could see, upon the prominences that seemed to embrace the ancient city, the wonderful historic ruins so carefully preserved there. Mr. Fabian pointed out the Acropolis, the Temple of Hephæstus, the Propylæa, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, and other noted architectural antiquities.
Several days were spent in Athens, visiting its vast wealth of past ages, then Mr. Fabian arranged to proceed, with his friends, to Pompeii, with its lure of restored ruins that had been buried for centuries.
From the scenes of Pompeii, they visited the Island of Ischia and its wilderness of vineyards; then they went on to Capri with its incomparable riot of color and natural beauties.
“I don’t see anything to keep us down here more than a day, or so, do you-all?” asked Mrs. Alexander, bored to distraction without the excitement of cities, or the speeding in her car.
“Oh Ma! we never saw anything so wonderful as these places, so don’t rush us away the moment we get here,” cried Dodo.
“But, Dodo, what is there here to see but a lot of wild greens, and poor people dressed in shawls and petticoats?” complained Mrs. Alexander.
“I ain’t saying a word, Ma, even if I can’t see all the fine things the others seem to enjoy,” remarked Mr. Alexander. “But it must be here, somewhere, so I’m hunting for it with might and main.”
His wife merely turned up her educated nose at his words, but refused to answer his earnest request for further time in which to find the hidden secret of his friends’ pleasure.