Mae Madden | Page 9

I am youngest and plumpest?
Albert would make good soup bones, and Eric's shoulder serve as a
delicious fore-quarter. And by the time we came to the top again, I was
all ready to cry. And then, mamma, I did an awful thing. Mr. Mann
exclaimed: "Why, Miss Mae, how frightened you look. You are quite
white." And I answered very sharply: "What a disagreeable man you
are. I'm not frightened at all." I said it in a dreadful tone, and how his
face changed. He looked so strangely. Everybody was still but Albert,
and he said, "Why, Mae, you are very rude to Mr. Mann." Even then I
didn't apologize. So here we are at sword's points, and all the rest
sympathizing with my foe, who is only on the defensive. Why am I
such a belligerent? I can't conceive where I got my nature, unless from
that very disagreeable dear old grandpapa of papa's, who fought the
whole world all his life. But how egotistic I am, even to my mother. Of
course you want to know how we are lodged and clothed and fed. We
have taken apartments, as I presume Albert wrote you, on the Via San
Nicolo da Tolentino, quite near the Costanzi hotel, which is in the
height of the fashion as a hotel; near too, which is better, to Mr. Story's
studio and the old Barberini palace and the Barberini square and
fountains. Off behind, is that terrible church of the Cappucini, with its
cemetery underneath of bones and skulls and such horrors. I like the
apartments very much, principally because I have made three staunch
friends and one good enemy, in the kitchen. The padrona,--she's the
woman who keeps the house, and serves us, too, in this case-- though
Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the table and care for our
rooms--well, the padrona is my first friend. Her cousin, a handsome
southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not only my friend, but my
instructress. She tells me lovely stories about her home and the

peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor with Giovanni,--friend
number three and eldest son of the padrona,-- and even Roberto, my
enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes his naughty mouth to
listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin's name. I am so glad I studied
Italian as hard as I did for my music, for it comes very easily to me
now, and already I slip the pretty words from my halting tongue much
more smoothly and quickly than you would imagine I could. Mrs.
Jerrold isn't quite
satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only she
doesn't believe in letting us girls stay at large hotels. She and Edith are
shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off quietly and
say nothing about it. It is strange for me to have to keep anything secret,
but I am learning how.
As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blueblack
silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd
loopings here and
there where you don't expect to find them. What can't a Parisian
dressmaker do? They have such a wonderful idea of appropriateness, it
seems to me. Now, at home you know we girls always wear the same
sort of thing, but Madame H---- says no, Edith, and I should dress very
differently; and now Edith's clothes all have a flow, and sweep, and
grace about them, and her silks rustle in a stately way as she walks,
while my dresses haven't any trimming to speak of, but are cut in a
clinging, square sort of way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle,
that makes me feel half the time as if I were playing soldier in a
lady-like fashion. But what a budget this is. How shocked the people
here would be. They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat
Baedeker, like the Bible,--and here am I crushing down Rome, and
raising Paris on top of it. Indeed, I can't help it, for Paris is utterly
intoxicating. It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your
powers of enjoyment. Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me
tremendous letters, won't you; for I do love you dearly.
Your loving daughter,
MAE.
Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, like a

volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris gloves,
singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted manner.
"Why, you look like a different girl," cried Eric, as she entered the
parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting. "Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, and
Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you