Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad
In America they fight like beasts to
get a job; here they seem anxious to avoid earning an honest penny. If
there could be a happy medium somewhere, I'd like it."
"Are we going to the best hotel?" asked Louise, who had seemed a trifle
disconsolate because she had not seen Count Ferralti since leaving
Naples.
"I don't know, my dear. It wasn't a question of choice, but of
necessity. No other hotel seemed willing to receive us."
They were now winding upward over a wonderful road cut in the solid
rock. It was broad and smooth and protected by a parapet of dressed
limestone. Now and then they passed pleasant villas set in orchards of
golden oranges or groves of olives and almonds; but there was no sign of
life on any side.
The road was zigzag, making a long ascent across the face of the cape,
then turning abruptly to wind back again, but always creeping upward
until an open space showed the station far below and a rambling stone
building at the edge of the cliff far above.
"Behold!" cried Frascatti, pointing up, "the Grand Hotel
Castello-a-Mare; is it not the excellenza location?"
"Has it a roof?" asked Uncle John, critically.
"Of a certainty, signore! But it does not show from below," was the
grave reply.
At times Frascatti stopped his horses to allow them to rest, and then he
would turn in his seat to address his passengers in the open victoria
and descant upon the beauties of the panorama each turn unfolded.
"This road is new," said he, "because we are very progressive and the
old road was most difficulty. Then it was three hours from the bottom to
the top. Now it is but a short hour, for our energy climbs the three
miles in that brief time. Shall I stop here for the sunset, or will your
excellenzi hasten on?"
"If your energy approves, we will hasten," returned Uncle John. "We love
a sunset, because it's bound to set anyway, and we may as well make the
best of it; but we have likewise an objection to being out after dark.
Any brigands around here?"
"Brigands!
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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