If he
perched it on his knees it was sure to slide away from him and fall with
a thump on the floor, whereupon he would pick it up, blushing furiously
as he did so. Then he would lay it on the seat when the train stopped at
a station, and jump out with an air of relief; but he invariably forgot,
and sat down upon it when he returned, and sprang up with a look of
horror at the loud crackle it made; after which he would tuck it into
the baggage-rack overhead, from which it would presently descend,
generally into the lap of one of the staid English ladies, who would
hand it back to him with an air of deep offence, remarking to her
companion,--
"I never knew anything like it. Fancy! that makes four times that hat
has fallen on me. The young man is a feedgit! He's the most feegitty
creature I ever saw in my life."
The young _seminariat_ did not understand a word she said; but the
tone needed no interpreter, and set him to blushing more painfully than
ever. Altogether, the hat was never off his mind for a moment. Katy
could see that he was thinking about it, even when he was thumbing his
Breviary and making believe to read.
At last the train, steaming down the valley of the Arno, revealed fair
Florence sitting among olive-clad hills, with Giotto's beautiful
Bell-tower, and the great, many-colored, soft-hued Cathedral, and the
square tower of the old Palace, and the quaint bridges over the river,
looking exactly as they do in the photographs; and Katy would have felt
delighted, in spite of dust and fatigue, had not Amy looked so worn out
and exhausted.
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