e had been reborn into some lighter, more
tenuous body. She felt as one does in those dreams when, by only holding
one's breath and springing upward, one floats delicately free of the law
of gravitation--casting off all heaviness of mind and body.

She stayed on deck. Bobby and the two maids were below in a cabin. It
was very calm. The sea spread flat and silken under a high moon. She did
not feel lonely. This solitude of the sufficient self was ecstasy, after
the long, feverish contact with others.

When they landed at Calais, the gay _pizzicato_ of the French tongue
gave her such pleasure that she wanted to laugh out like a child
suddenly tickled by light fingers. It was so fitting--so deliciously
appropriate. Here was she reborn to a new heaven and a new earth. Of
course there must be also a new language. How glad she was that her old
governess had been French! It seemed that a kindly Fate had been long
ago preparing her for this gay moment, as well as this moment for her.
She spoke pretty, clear French--had spoken it since babyhood. It was a
fresh magic to find herself so well understood. That the day was
overcast, as they went rushing on to Paris, through the wide, fenceless,
hedgeless fields, did not damp her joyous mood. This greyness was so
different from that of England--as different as moonstones from onyx----
She looked at the frail pallor of the sky, and thought of the moonstones
of Ceylon, in whose watery silver there is a gleam of blue. She did not
care if the sun of France veiled itself; so that Italy burst on her in
floods of golden light she was content. She could not bear the thought
of seeing Italy, for the first time, demure and grey. On the bright
horizon of her fancy it floated like a magic island wrought of golden
glass and lapis-lazuli--colonnaded with pale marble--hung round about
with gardens like ancient Babylon--crowned with lilies like its own
Florence--and with violets like Athens. The "blunt-nosed" bees of
Theocritus hummed about it. Song-birds like living jewels flew above it.
Alas! She did not know that the inhabitants of her fairyland devour
their song-birds.

But though she dreamed of the Italy of poets and painters, she had to go
direct to practical Milan. Bellamy thought it important that a certain
Dr. Johnson who lived there should see Bobby before she took him to Lago
Maggiore for the remainder of the summer.

She found the town so hot and dusty that she decided not to go out un