to stores. With the
exception of church-going they did not have a chance to step outside the
grounds of the Villa Camellia. The Sunday expedition came as a welcome
relief to break the monotony. The school liked the little British church
at Fossato. It was so utterly different from anything to which they had
been accustomed in England or America. To begin with it was not an
ecclesiastical building at all, but simply a big room in the basement of
the Hotel Anglais. The walls had been exquisitely decorated by a French
artist with conventionalized designs of iris in purple and gold, and
through the windows there was a gorgeous peep over the bay. The girls
used to exercise much maneuvering to secure the seats with the best
view, and somehow that bright stretch of the Mediterranean seemed to
blend in as part and parcel of all the praise and thanksgiving that was
being offered.

Punctually at twenty minutes to eleven on Sunday mornings the fifty-six
pupils and the seven mistresses would leave the great gate of the Villa
Camellia and march into the town, along the esplanade under the grove of
palm trees, then through the beautiful sheltered garden of the Hotel
Anglais, where many exotic flowers and shrubs were blooming and the
white arum lilies were like an Easter festival, to the doorway, under
the jessamine-covered veranda, that led to the _Eglise anglaise et
americaine_. The school practically made half the congregation, but
there were visitors from the various hotels, and a sprinkling of British
residents who had houses at Fossato. When the service was over there
followed a very pleasant quarter of an hour in the piazza of the hotel;
the clergyman and his wife would speak personally to many of the girls,
and any of the pupils who met friends were allowed to talk to them.
Fossato was a popular week-end resort from Naples, so relatives often
turned up on Sundays and there were many joyous reunions. Kind little
Canon Clark and his small bird-like wife were great favorites at the
Villa Camellia. They were always invited to school functions, and each
term the girls, in relays of about ten at a time, were offered
hospitality at the "Villa Bleue," a tiny dwelling that served as
parsonage for the British chaplain. To go to tea at the dear wee
house--color-washed blue, and with pink geraniums in its
window-boxes--was considered a treat, and Irene and Lorna looked very
glum indeed when Miss Rodgers kept severely to their punishment,