hen spoke of Italy.
"You mustn't go there in the winter," he said. "You don't see the
country at its best. May is the time for Italy. Then it is neither too
hot nor too cold, and you will find out what an Italian sky is." We
said that we hoped to be in England in the spring, and he agreed that
we were right there. "England is never so lovely as in May."

"Well!" exclaimed Euphemia; "it seems to me, from all I hear, that we
ought to take about twelve years to see Europe. We should leave the
United States every April, spend May in some one place, and go back in
June. And this we ought to do each year until we have seen all the
places in May. This might do very well for any one who had plenty of
money, and who liked the ocean, but I don't think we could stand it. As
for me," she continued, "I would like to spend these months, so cold
and disagreeable here, in the sunny lands of Southern France. I want to
see the vineyards and the olive groves, and the dark-eyed maidens
singing in the fields. I long for the soft skies of Provence, and to
hear the musical dialect in which Frederic Mistral wrote his 'Mireio.'"

"That sounds very well," said Baxter, "but in all those southern
countries you must be prepared in winter for the rigors of the climate.
The sun is pretty warm sometimes at this season, but as soon as you get
out of it you will freeze to death if you are not careful. The only way
to keep warm is to be in the sun, out of the wind, and that won't work
on rainy days, and winter is the rainy season, you know. In the houses
it is as cold as ice, and the fires don't amount to anything. You
might as well light a bundle of wooden tooth-picks and put it in the
fire-place. If you could sleep all the time you might be comfortable,
for they give you a feather-bed to cover yourself with. Outside you
may do well enough if you keep up a steady walking, but indoors you
will have hard work to keep warm. You must wear chest-protectors. They
sell them down there--great big ones, made of rabbit-skins; and a nice
thing for a man to have to wear in the house is a pair of cloth bags
lined with fur. They would keep his feet and legs warm when he isn't
walking. It is well, too, to have a pair of smaller fur bags for your
hands when you are in the house. You can have a little hole in the end
of one of them through which you can stick a pen-holder, and then you
can write letters. An india-rubber bag, filled with hot water, to lower
down your