THE LESSON NOT YET LEARNED.
Now many of the girls who read this story will doubtless imagine that
Henrietta Mostyn has learned her lesson and will in future be at least
an ordinarily good girl, not breaking out into any violent crises of
bad temper and naughtiness. But the girls who do think so do not quite
realise Henrietta's nature.
For the first couple of days she was delighted with the life at the
charming hotel where Mr. O'Brien had taken rooms for his party. The
foreign food was also agreeable to her palate. She could talk as much
as she pleased, and she certainly did chatter to her heart's content,
but the beauty and the glory and the greatness of Rome were not for one
like Henrietta.
The great Church of St. Peter's puzzled her, but aroused no respect.
The pictures at the Vatican which so enraptured Maureen and Dominic
wearied her to distraction. The different churches they visited were
all beautiful to Maureen, Dominic, and Mr. O'Brien, but go where
they would, see what they might, the only thing that really pleased
Henrietta was her food, her admirable food, and the different dresses
that the ladies wore who came in and out of the hotel.
As to everything else, it became a weariness of the flesh to the
poor child. She did not like the innumerable shops with their lovely
photographs and pieces of rare _vertu_ exposed to view, but she gloated
over the shops which displayed chocolates, cakes, and other dainty
sweetmeats. She liked, too, to see the shops full of colour. She wanted
brightness. She had a perfect passion for sweets and very gay beads and
for brightness. In short, Henrietta was nothing less than a vigorous
little cuckoo hatched in the wrong nest.
She was still, it is true, anxious to please Maureen, but otherwise she
was sick of Rome.
One morning the whole party went early to the celebrated Fountain of
Trevi, and, as was the custom, Dominic, the Rector, Maureen, and Daisy
all drank of the sparkling, delicious water. Maureen filled a glass to
the brim and brought it to Henrietta.
"Take it away," said Henny; "I hate cold water."
"Oh," replied Maureen, "but you must try and drink this. There is an
old legend about this. You drink, if it is only a little, and it will
insure your return again to this darling, splendid Rome."
"That settles the question," replied Henrietta. "If there is a place on
this earth I loathe, it is Rome. It is a degree worse, I do declare,
than the Punishment Chair, and Dinah praying without uttering a word
aloud, and that is saying a good bit."
"Well, Henny, you'll learn to love the wonders of Rome some day. Look,
do look, there are some cardinals. Don't they look too wonderful in
their crimson robes?"
"I won't look. I don't see anything pretty or beautiful about those
affected beings. I say, Maureen, I've got a splitting pain in my _nut_.
Please, Maureen's uncle, for you don't allow me to call you step-daddy,
may I go back at once to the Hotel? I promise indeed to be good and, as
you are all going to that horrid Vatican, may I not lie down? Please, I
cannot stand any more pictures."
"I'm sorry you have a headache," said Maureen. "Perhaps, Uncle Pat, she
might go back and lie down. We must try and find something quite light
and entertaining for her to-night."
"Oh yes, do, do," said Henny, clapping her hands.
"Henrietta, can I take you at your word; will you be good?" said the
Rector. "Dominic and Maureen and Daisy and I are going to meet one of
the great professors, who will show us and explain to us the recent
excavations in the Forum."
"I honestly promise to be good--I do, indeed," said Henny.
"And you won't leave the Hotel; _you promise_?"
"Of course, I do. I'll be only too thankful to lie down and keep quiet
until it is time to eat. Although I have a headache, I am hungry. I
suppose I may eat even though you are out enjoying what would kill me."
"Yes, poor little girl, you may certainly eat. We'll take her back to
the Hotel, Maureen, and put her under the care of Victorine, who will
let her know when _déjeuner_ is served."
So Henrietta had her way.
Victorine was a dark-eyed Italian girl, who could speak broken English,
and promised volubly to see after the signorina, but Mr. O'Brien did
not feel thoroughly comfortable as he went off with Maureen and Daisy
and Dominic, at leaving this wild creature practically alone.
But Maureen, for once in her life, was selfish. She absolutely forgot
Henrietta in the marvels which the great professor poured into her
cultured little mind. She listened with awe and wonder.
She was no longer in the country of modern civilisation; she had ceased
to be a child of the present day. She was back in the old, old times.
She was even with Nero in his unspeakable cruelty--but also in the
refinement of this extraordinary being's perfect taste.
She was with the Vestal Virgins. She was under the Arch of Titus. She
stood on the banks of the Tiber, that mighty river of ancient times.
Her heart thrilled and stood still. Was _this_ narrow turgid stream the
mighty fast-flowing river that was known in history, where the great
Horatius kept the bridge?
It was some small comfort to the eager little listener when the old
professor explained to her how centuries had worked changes and that
the river was really a mighty mass of swift-flowing water in the brave
days of old.
The learned professor was really charmed with his little companion,
and insisted on the entire party coming to lunch with him in his
_appartement_ in one of the old palaces.
Finally he took them to see under his own special guidance the
greatest picture in the world--Raphael's Transfiguration, that mighty
masterpiece, so well known, and never to be forgotten. He explained the
full meaning of the picture, Christ in Glory, the awed and terrified
disciples, the epileptic boy. He described how, when Raphael died, the
picture was scarcely finished, but it was hung over his death-bed as he
lay in state, and was carried in his funeral procession.
Finally he recited those great lines of Rogers:
"And when all beheld
Him where he lay, how changed from yesterday--
Him in that hour cut off, and at his head
His last great work;--when entering in, they look'd,
Now on the dead, then on _that_ masterpiece--
Now on his face, lifeless and colourless,
Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed,
And would live on for ages--all were moved,
And sighs burst forth and loudest lamentations."