`Little Clover' came gallantly `to the fore' when the first shock of the surprise was over, and she had relieved her mind with one long private cry over having to do without Katy for a year. Then she wiped her eyes, and began to revel unselfishly in the idea of her sister having so great a treat. Anything and everything seemed possible to secure it for her, and she made light of all Katy's many anxieties and apprehensions.

`My dear child, I know a flannel undershirt when I see one, just as well as you do,' she declared. `Tucks in Johnnie's dress, forsooth! Why, of course. Ripping out a tuck doesn't require any superhuman ingenuity! Give me your scissors, and I'll show you at once. Quince marmalade? Debby can make that; hers is about as good as yours. And if it wasn't, what should we care, as long as you are ascending Mont Blanc, and hobnobbing with Michelangelo and the crowned heads of Europe? I'll make the spiced peaches! I'll order the kindling! And if there ever comes a time when I feel lost and can't manage without advice, I'll go across to Mrs Hall. Don't worry about us. We shall get on happily and easily; in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if I developed such a turn for housekeeping, that when you come back the family refused to change, and you had just to sit for the rest of your life and twirl your thumbs and watch me do it! Wouldn't that be fine?' and Clover laughed merrily. `So, Katy darling, cast that shadow from your brow, and look as a girl ought to look who's going to Europe. Why, if it were I who were going, I should simply stand on my head every moment of the time!'

`Not a very convenient position for packing,' said Katy, smiling.

`Yes it is, if you just turn your trunk upside down! `When I think of all the delightful things you are going to do I can hardly sit still. I love Mrs Ashe for inviting you.

`So do I,' said Katy soberly. `It was the kindest thing. I can't think why she did it.'

`Well, I can,' replied Clover, always ready to defend Katy even against herself. `She did it because she wanted you, and she wanted you because you are the dearest old thing in the world, and the nicest to have about. You needn't say you're not, for you are! Now, Katy, don't waste another thought on such miserable things as pickles and undershirts. We shall get along perfectly well, I do assure you. Just fix your mind instead on the dome of St Peter's, or try to fancy how you'll feel the first time you step into a gondola or see the Mediterranean. There will be a moment! I feel a forty-horse power of housekeeping developing within me; and what fun it will be to get your letters! We shall fetch out the encyclopaedia and the big atlas and the History of Modern Europe, and read all about everything you see and all the places you go to; it will be as good as a lesson in geography and history and political economy all combined, only a great deal more interesting! We shall stick out all over with knowledge before you come back, so this makes it a plain duty to go, if it were only for our sakes.' With these zealous promises, Katy was forced to be content. Indeed, contentment was not difficult with such a prospect of delight before her. When once her little anxieties had been laid aside, the idea of the coming journey grew in pleasantness every moment. Night after night she and papa and the children pored over maps and made out schemes for travel and sightseeing, every one of which was likely to be discarded as soon as the real journey began. But they didn't know that, and it made no real difference. Such schemes are the preliminary joys of travel, and it doesn't signify that they come to nothing after they have served their purpose.

Katy learned a great deal while thus talking over what she was to see and do. She read every scrap she could lay her hands on which related to Rome or Florence or Venice or London. The driest details had a charm for her now that she was likely to see the real places. She went about with scraps of paper in her pocket, on which were written such things as these: `Forum. When built? By whom built? More than one?' `What does Cenacola mean?' `Cecilia Metella. Who was she?' `Find out about Saint Catherine of Sienna.' `Who was Beatrice Cenci?' How she wished that she had studied harder and more carefully before this wonderful chance came to her! People always wish this when they are starting for Europe, and they wish it more and more after they get there, and realize of what value exact ideas and information and a fuller knowledge of the foreign languages are to all travellers, and how they add to the charm of everything seen, and enhance the ease of everything done.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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