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Coolidge, Susan, 1835-1905

"What Katy Did Next"


"Speaking of Paris seems to renew the sense of fog which we had
there. Oh, how enchanting sunshine is after weeks of gloom! I shall
never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first,--all
blue, and such a lovely color. There ought, according to Morse's
Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we
were, but I didn't see any. Perhaps they letter it so far out from
shore that only people in boats notice it.
"Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these
warm afternoons begins to be felt. Amy has received a message
written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect--"
Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel
behind her.
"Good afternoon," said a voice. "Polly has sent me to fetch you and Amy
in. She says it is growing cool."
"We were just coming," said Katy, beginning to put away her papers.
Ned Worthington sat down on the cloak beside her. The distance was now
steel gray against the sky; then came a stripe of violet, and then a
broad sheet of the vivid iridescent blue which one sees on the necks of
peacocks, which again melted into the long line of flashing surf.
"See that gull," he said, "how it drops plumb into the sea, as if bound
to go through to China!"
"Mrs. Hawthorne calls skylarks 'little raptures,'" replied Katy.
"Sea-gulls seem to me like grown-up raptures."
"Are you going?" said Lieutenant Worthington in a tone of surprise,
as she rose.


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