The sun, dancing on the bright waves, hurt Maria Angelina's eyes. She had to shut them, they watered so foolishly. And something in her young breast wanted to cry after that boat, "Take me back—take me back to my home," but something else in her forbade and would have died of shame before it uttered such weakness.
For poor Julietta, for dear anxious Mamma, she knew herself the only hope.
So steadily she waved her handkerchief long after she had lost the responding flutter from the boat.
She was not crying now. She felt exalted. She pressed closer to the rail and stared out very solemnly over the blue and gold bay to beautiful Naples. . . . Suddenly her heart quickened. Vesuvius was moving. The far-off shores of Italy were slipping by. Above her the black smoke that had been coming faster and faster from the great funnels streamed backward like long banners.
Maria Angelina was on her way.
CHAPTER II
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
With whatever emotion Jane Blair had received the startling demand upon her hospitality she rallied nobly to the family call. She left her daughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering and descended upon her husband in his New York office to rout him out to meet the girl with her.
"An infernal shame—that's what I call it!" Jim Blair grumbled, facing the steaming heat of the unholy customs shed. "It's an outrage—an imposition——"