Irma in Italy Part 9

Did Marion speak with embarra.s.sment, or did Irma imagine this because she had heard of his going to the steerage for lessons?

"_Addio, addio_," cried the owner of the bananas, who had completed his task of packing the fruit in Marion's bag.

"_Addio, addio_," responded Marion, while the man, as he pa.s.sed on to the gangway, poured forth a flood of thanks.

When the tender had steamed off, Irma went below. She needed a good night's rest, for breakfast was to be at half past seven.

In the misty morning the tender made a quick run to the dock. Just as they pushed away from the _Ariadne_ Irma heard a voice crying, "Good-by, G.o.d-daughter." It was the little old gentleman. Since evening she had not seen him, and now she was ashamed that she had not tried to find him for a word of farewell.

"Good-by, good-by," she cried, waving her handkerchief. But already he had slipped back out of sight.

"To whom were you calling?" asked Aunt Caroline.

"To the fairy G.o.dfather."

"If you were not generally so sensible, sometimes I should think you quite out of your mind," rejoined Aunt Caroline. "Except for that fruit at Gibraltar, your fairy G.o.dfather would seem a myth. For neither your uncle nor I ever saw such a person on the _Ariadne_. Did you, Marion?"

"Of course not," replied Marion shortly.

But Irma only smiled. She knew there was such a person.

CHAPTER V

ON Sh.o.r.e

The arrival at Naples was much less terrible than many persons had pictured it to Irma and Aunt Caroline. No one attempted to tear their chatelaine bags from them; the officers of the _dogana_ were perfectly civil; no one tried to abstract their trunks. It is true there was a long and apparently needless delay before their trunks were examined and marked, but they made light of this when once they were in the carriage on their way to the hotel.

The busy streets through which they first pa.s.sed were broad and clean.

Electric cars, hardly different from the American type, ran through them. The men and women on the sidewalks stepped along briskly. Aunt Caroline and Uncle Jim made constant contrasts between the Naples of the present and the past.

"The cholera of '84 had one good result; it enabled the city fathers here to do away with many old slums, and put these new streets in their place."

Their way eventually led up a broad avenue that mounted to the heights above the old city. Once or twice, at a turn of the road, they had a view of the bay, and of Vesuvius in the distance.

"There, there, Irma," cried Uncle Jim, when they first saw the mountain.

"Let your heart beat as rapidly as it will; you now look on one of the wonders of the world."

Their hotel was on ground so high that they entered it by a subway, and thence by elevator to the summit of a rock whereon stood the hotel.

While Uncle Jim was securing rooms, the others, by a common impulse, rushed out on a balcony, of which they had caught a glimpse.

"Yes, this is Naples!" exclaimed Aunt Caroline, looking down on the lovely bay, clear and blue. "But," she continued, "Vesuvius is certainly changed--I did not realize that losing the top would so alter him, or her. What do you call volcanoes, Irma?"

"Them," responded Irma, and even Marion smiled at her promptness.

While they were still looking at the bay and the distant sh.o.r.es of Sorrento and Amalfi, Irma suddenly felt two hands clasp themselves over her eyes.

"Don't forget your friends just because you have a volcano to look at,"

and then, unclasping her hands from Irma's eyes, Muriel stepped in front, where Irma could see her.

Muriel was one of those who had left the _Ariadne_ the night before, and as she had not mentioned where she should stay in Naples, Irma and her party were surprised to see her.

"Isn't it great that we should be here together?" continued Muriel, after the others had said a word or two of greeting. "The only disagreeable thing is that I am going on to-morrow, for our motor is here, and mamma does not wish to wait longer in Naples."

So it happened that though they planned to spend part of the next morning together, this was the last time that Muriel and Irma saw each other for several weeks.

"It's well we didn't make plans over night," said Irma, when she joined the others at _dejeuner_ on the morning of her arrival in Naples. "There seems to be a fine mist in the air; and probably that means rain."

"Then we won't plan a long drive. You can come shopping with me, Irma,"

said Aunt Caroline. "I wish to look for coral."

"I did not know there was so much coral in the world," said Irma, after they had been out some time. "Where do they get it?"

"From j.a.pan and Sardinia and--oh--several other places."

"But why should it all come here?"

"Because in Naples they know how to cut coral and cameos better than elsewhere in the world."

"It is beautiful, of course, and there are so many shades of pink, I shall never know what is meant when any one calls a thing coral colored."

"You must choose something for yourself," urged Aunt Caroline, "a little souvenir of Naples;" and when Irma hesitated she selected for her a string of pale red beads.

"The very light pink are the most valuable," said Aunt Caroline, "but I will not suggest a change."

From the shops near the water front they drove over to the Galleria Umberto I, a huge structure with a gla.s.s dome that gave plenty of light to the shops in the arcades on the street level. Here Irma bought two or three little gifts for some of her friends at home,--just whom does not matter now.

The afternoon pa.s.sed quickly, and Irma was pleased when Aunt Caroline said it would be wiser to get afternoon tea in a restaurant down town.

Irma herself would have enjoyed the open-air restaurants which she had noted as they drove around, but in the more conventional place that her aunt chose, they managed to find a few novelties on the menu.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPLES. A STREET VIEW.]

Later, they took a drive through some narrow streets, where Irma saw many of the peculiarities of Neapolitan street life, of which she had read a little. There were whole families sitting in front of their dwellings. In some cases mothers were combing the hair of little children, or changing their clothes, or bending over what Irma called "cooking-stands," for they certainly could hardly be considered stoves.

"I wonder what they are cooking," she said, "in those queer copper kettles or pans. I should not know what to call them."

"Snail soup, perhaps," replied Aunt Caroline, "or more probably macaroni."

The word "macaroni" seemed to catch their coachman's ear, and turning toward them, he said some words in Italian so rapidly that Aunt Caroline hardly understood, and then, urging his horse, drove straight on.

"He said something about 'old men,' and 'eating macaroni,' but I have no idea what he really means, and I do not like the region where he is taking us."

Finally, after many windings, they pa.s.sed up a street on which the houses were poor, but of a rather better type than those they had seen a short time earlier.

"There must be an inst.i.tution near by," said Aunt Caroline, after they had met, one after the other, several old men wearing a blue uniform.