Nothing can be more perplexed than Blondine's mind, as she has often thought there was no accounting for Dolores' conduct lately. Blondine hurries her sketch book into the little willow-basket.
"I suppose we had better get back," she says as calmly as her confused feelings will allow, and Dolores wearily assents. Certainly the bright day which promised so much pleasure is falling most woefully short of its fulfillment.
"Tell me what ails you, dear; are you ill? Come, tell me all about it, won't you, Dolores." But Dolores shakes her pretty head; she does not seem inclined to tell any one anything. Blondine gives her up in despair. She is beginning to think herself, perhaps it would have been better not to have come here; and yet what was there, here in bright, pleasant, sunny Nice, that the most fastidious could object to? Poor Blondine gives this second problem up as hopeless as the first.
"I suppose you are pretty well packed. You know we start by the five-fifteen coach this afternoon; so look lively, my dears."
Uncle Dick's pompous figure is standing in the gateway, and uncle Dick's merry grey eyes look enquiringly at Dolores' pale face.
"What's up now? Too much high jinks seems to use you up soon, young lady."
Major Gray goes in for pink cheeks and red lips, like blooming Blondine's, for instance. He admires Dolores immensely, but she might have been a marble statue now, for all the pink there is in her face; she looks positively 'chalky.'
"Uncle Dick, we are surely not off so soon?" Blondine exclaims.
"Yes, my dear, but we are; we have been gone a good round year now. See, we have done Marseilles, Naples, Cannes, Monaco, Mentone, San Remo, Pegli, Genoa, Spezia, Lucca, Pisa, Leghorn, Serrento, Capri and Nice, and I feel as if I should enjoy the sight of home faces again. So hurry now, so we won't be late."
Uncle Dick rolls off down street at a dashing pace, full of glee at having got over the question of departure. He had expected to be assailed by an avalanche of refusals at leaving Italy for a long while yet. It has all been gotten over with so smoothly, that Major Gray could at this moment have shaken hands with his greatest enemy—if such a being existed, which was doubtful—and said "hope you're well," with genuine warmth.