A modern trio in an old town

As I look back through my experience of eighteen years, I realize that many of my apprehensions have been foolish, because so many of the things that I dreaded turned out all ri...

After I had said good-by to a great many people, and walked down the shaking steps with canvas banisters that the sailors hang on the side of a ship, and stepped into a little t...

“At the next station,” Mr. Wake said, “I am going to get two mighty good lunches that come packed in little baskets, and there will be a little wicker-covered bottle, full of wi...

When we reached Florence, which was well along in the afternoon, Mr. Wake went with me to the Pension Dante, which is on the Piazza Indipendenza, not far from the station, and i...

I looked at the bunch of paper roses that stood in the center of the table as I ate my soup, because I felt all the rest looking at me and it made me uncomfortable; and I suppos...

After I had breakfast, I went back to my room, and tried to forget that I was almost hungrier than I had been before, and I did this by looking out into the court, which I found...

That night, after a dinner during which Leslie and Viola looked as if they were chewing lemons, I went to call on them because I thought it was the polite thing to do. Goodness...

Signor Paggi’s studio is high up in one of those old palaces that seem to frown at you, and the palace is on the Via Tornabuoni, which is a street where lots of the wealthy and...

After we had made a slinking exit that took us into the outer room, and the girl, at a nod from Signor Paggi, had put our names down in the book and given us slips upon which we...

The week that followed the day of our first visit to Signor Paggi allowed us all to find our grooves and to settle into them. And each day I, in my going, started with a contine...

I knew he had fainted, but I spoke to him again to make sure, and I even laid my hand on his shoulder and shook him a little. Then I put my umbrella on the step, and my bag of c...

The days that followed were dark and gloomy; the cold crept inside and every one was uncomfortable and almost every one cross. Sometimes I think that the weather really makes al...

It was Beata who had tapped on my door, and after my weak-kneed “Come--” she opened it and came in, and as she crossed the floor to reach me she held out a lavender striped box...

That afternoon was pleasant, but I don’t think that’s the reason I remember it so clearly. A good many pleasant sight-seeing walks followed that have grown a little dim, even no...

After that first real walk and our outdoor tea, Viola, Mr. Wake, Sam Deane and I took a great many walks--always two a week--and I came to enjoy seeing the things I should see,...

By Christmas time I was so well acquainted with both Leslie and Viola, that when, a week before Christmas, Viola called me in her room and told me what she was writing, I told h...

Viola was tying some red tissue paper around the funny little tree that Leslie, with great effort, had got from a florist, and after she stood erect and stretched, she responded...

It was hard to get down to real work after Christmas, for there was a spirit of gaiety in the air that was too strong to be ignored. In the streets was always the shrill noise t...

I found the cablegram that had come for Viola told her that her father was dead; the father whom she had not written since her complaining, begging letter of Christmas time.

A great deal happened in that slice of time which carried us from January into spring, although during that interval we felt as if we were going along almost entirely on the lev...

April came in as gently and softly as a month could possibly come, and it held more loveliness than I had ever dreamed could be. The sun was growing too warm and, some days, the...

Miss Sheila was at the Convent of San Girolamo, which is a hospital that is managed by nuns, at Fiesole. And she had written me about her plan to go there before the ship landed.

I felt my heart stop a beat and then treble its pace, and I swallowed hard although there was no real necessity for it. And as for saying a word! I couldn’t have gotten out a “B...

The end of May! And all over again I felt the excitement that comes with a journey, for I was started for Genoa on the twenty-fifth with Miss Meek to see that I got aboard the W...