Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe Part 5

And Lucy seemed to have her wish all at once, for she and Amina stood in her own schoolroom, but with no one else there. The first thing Amina did was to scream, "Oh, what shocking windows! even men can see in; shut them up." She rolled herself up in her veil, and Lucy could only satisfy her by pulling down all the blinds, after which she ventured to look about a little. "What have you to sit on?" she asked, with great disgust.

"Chairs and stools," said Lucy, laughing and showing them.

"These little tables with four legs! How can you sit on them?"

Lucy sat down and showed her. "That is not sitting," she said, and tried to curl herself up cross-legged; "I can't dangle down my legs."

"Our governess always makes us write out a tense of a French verb if she sees us sitting with our legs crossed," said Lucy, laughing with much amus.e.m.e.nt at Amina's attempts to wriggle herself up on the stool whence she nearly fell.

"Ah, I will never have a governess!" cried Amina. "I will cry, and cry, and give Selim Bey no rest till he promises to let me alone. What a dreadful place this is! Where can you sleep?"

"In bed, to be sure" said Lucy.

"I see no cushions to lie on."

"No; we have bedrooms, and beds there. We should not think of taking off our clothes here."

"What should you undress for?"

"To sleep, of course."

"How horrible! We sleep in all our clothes wherever we like to lie down.

We never undress but for the bath. Do you go to the bath?"

"I have a bath every morning, when I get up, in my own room."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I will show you where you live. This is Constantinople."

_Page 92._]

"Bathe at home! Then you never see your friends? We meet at the bath, and talk and play and laugh."

"Meet bathing! No, indeed! We meet at home, and out of doors," said Lucy; "my friend Annie and I walk together."

"Walk together! what, in the street? Shocking! You cannot be a lady."

"Indeed I am," said Lucy, colouring up. "My Papa is a gentleman. And see how many books we have, and how much we have to learn! French, and music, and sums, and grammar, and history, and geography."

"I _will_ not be a Frank! No, no! I will not learn," said the alarmed Amina on hearing this catalogue poured forth.

"Geography is very nice," said Lucy; "here are our maps. I will show you where you live. This is Constantinople."

"I live at Stamboul," said Amina, scornfully.

"There is Stamboul in little letters below--look."

"That Stamboul! The Frank girl is false; Stamboul is a large, large, beautiful place; not a little black speck. I can see it from my lattice.

White houses and mosques in the sun, and the blue Golden Horn, with the little caiques gliding."

Before Lucy could explain, the door opened, and one of her brothers put in his head. At once Amina began to scream and roll herself in the window curtain. "A man in the harem! Oh! oh! oh! Were there no slippers at the door?" And her screaming brought Lucy awake at Uncle Joe's again.

CHAPTER XI.

SWITZERLAND.

"I LIKED the mountain girl best of all," thought Lucy. "I wonder whether I shall ever get among the mountains again. There's a great stick in the corner that Uncle Joe calls his alpenstock. I'll go and read the names upon it. They are all the mountains where he has used it."

She read Mount Blanc, Mount Cenis, the Wengern, and so on; and of course as she read and sung them over to herself, they lulled her off into her wonderful dreams, and brought her this time into a meadow, steep and sloping, but full of flowers, the loveliest flowers, of all kinds, growing among the long gra.s.s that waved over them. The fresh clear air was so delicious that she almost hoped she was gone back to her dear Tyrol; but the hills were not the same. She saw upon the slope quant.i.ties of cows, goats, and sheep, feeding just as on the Tyrolese Alps; but beyond was a dark row of pines, and up above, in the sky as it were, rose all round great sharp points--like clouds for their whiteness, but not in their straight jagged outlines; and here and there the deep grey clefts between seemed to spread into white rivers, or over the ruddy purple of the half-distance came sharp white lines darting downwards.

As she sat up in the gra.s.s and looked about her, a bark startled her. A dog began to growl, bark, and dance round her, so that she would have been much frightened if the next moment a voice had not called him off--"Fie, Brilliant, down; let the little girl alone. _Fi donc._ He is good, Mademoiselle, never fear. He helps me keep the cows."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I cut it out with my knife, all myself."

_Page 98._]

"Who are you, then?"

"I am Maurice, the little herd-boy. I live with my grandmother, and work for her."

"What, in keeping cows?"

"Yes; and look here!"

"O the delicious little cottage! It has eaves, and windows, and balconies, and a door, and little cows and sheep, and men and women, all in pretty white wood! You did not make it, Maurice?"

"Yes, truly, I did; I cut it out with my knife, all myself."

"How clever you must be. And what shall you do with it?"

"I shall watch for a carriage with ladies winding up that long road; and then I shall stand and take off my hat, and hold out my cottage. Perhaps they will buy it, and then I shall have enough to get grandmother a warm gown for the winter. When I grow bigger I will be a guide, like my father."

"A guide?"

"Yes, to lead travellers up to the mountain-tops. There is nowhere you English will not go. The harder a mountain is to climb, the more bent you are on going up. And oh, I shall love it too! There are the great glaciers, the broad streams of ice that fill up the furrows of the mountains, with the creva.s.ses so blue and beautiful and cruel. It was in one of them my father was swallowed up."

"Ah! then how can you love them?" said Lucy.

"Because they are so grand and so beautiful," said Maurice. "No other place has the like, and they make one's heart swell with wonder, and joy in the G.o.d who made them. And it is only the brave who dare to climb them!"

And Maurice's eyes sparkled, and Lucy looked at the clear, stern glory of the mountain points, and felt as if she understood him.

CHAPTER XII.