finding them all engaged, she ordered the coachman to drive to a convent where there was hope that a nursing sister might be procured.
Their route lay across the Corso. So utterly had the carnival with all its gay follies vanished from her mind that she was for a moment astonished at finding herself en tangled in a motley crowd, so dense that the coachman was obliged to rein in his horses and stand still for some time.
There were the same masks and dominoes, the same picturesque peasant costumes which had struck her as so gay and pretty only three days before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The bright colours affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them. She lay back in the carriage, trying to be patient through the detention, and half shut her eyes.
A shower of lime dust aroused her. It came from a party of burly figures in white cotton dominoes, whose carriage had been stopped by the crowd close to her own. She signified by gestures that she had no confetti and no protection, that she `was not playing', in fact, but her appeal made no difference. The maskers kept on shovelling lime all over her hair and person and the carriage, and never tired of the sport till an opportune break in the procession enabled their vehicle to move on.
Katy was shaking their largesse from her dress and parasol as well as she could, when she heard an odd gibbering sound close to her ear, and the laughter of the crowd attracted her attention to the back of the carriage. A masker attired as a scarlet devil had climbed into the hood, and was now perched close behind her. She shook her head at him, but he only shook his in return, and chattered and grimaced, and bent over till his fiery mask almost grazed her shoulder. There was no hope but in good humour, as she speedily realized, and, recollecting that in her shopping bag one or two of the carnival bonbons still remained, she took these out and offered them in the hope of propitiating him. The fiend bit one to ensure that it was made of sugar and not lime, while the crowd laughed more than ever; then, seeming satisfied, he made Katy a little speech in rapid Italian, of which she did not comprehend a word, kissed her hand, jumped down from the carriage, and disappeared into the crowd, to her great relief.
Presently after that the driver spied an opening, of which he took advantage. They were across the Corso now, with the roar and rush of the carnival dying into silence as they drove rapidly on, and Katy, as she finished wiping away the last of the lime dust, wiped some tears from her cheeks as well.
`How hateful it all was!' she said to herself. Then she remembered a sentence read somewhere: `How heavily roll the wheels of other people's joys when your heart is sorrowful!' and she realized that it is true.
The convent was propitious, and promised to send a sister next morning, with the proviso that every second day she was to come back to sleep and rest. Katy was too thankful for any aid to make objections, and drove home with visions of saintly nuns with pure, pale faces full of peace and resignation, such as she had read of in books, floating before her eyes.
Sister Ambrogia, when she appeared next day, did not exactly realize these imaginations. She was a plump little person, with rosy cheeks, a pair of demure black eyes, and a very obstinate mouth and chin. It soon appeared that natural inclination, combined with the rules of her convent, made her theory of a nurse's duties a very limited one.
If Mrs Ashe wished her to go down to the office with an order, she was told: `We sisters care for the sick; we are not allowed to converse with porters and hotel people.'