She was the Princess, encircled by delights, as when she and
Clover and Elsie played in "Paradise,"--only, this was better; and, dear
me! who was this Prince who seemed to belong to the story and to grow
more important to it every day?
Fairy tales must come to ending. Katy's last chapter closed with a
sudden turn-over of the leaf when, toward the end of this happy
fortnight, Mrs. Ashe came into her room with the face of one who has
unpleasant news to communicate.
"Katy," she began, "should you be _awfully_ disappointed, should
you consider me a perfect wretch, if I went home now instead of in
the autumn?"
Katy was too much astonished to reply.
"I am grown such a coward, I am so knocked up and weakened by what I
suffered in Rome, that I find I cannot face the idea of going on to
Germany and Switzerland alone, without Ned to take care of me. You are a
perfect angel, dear, and I know that you would do all you could to make
it easy for me, but I am such a fool that I do not dare. I think my
nerves must have given way," she continued half tearfully; "but the very
idea of shifting for myself for five months longer makes me so miserably
homesick that I cannot endure it. I dare say I shall repent afterward,
and I tell myself now how silly it is; but it's no use,--I shall never
know another easy moment till I have Amy safe again in America and under
your father's care."
"I find," she continued after another little pause, "that we can go down
with Ned to Genoa and take a steamer there which will carry us straight
to New York without any stops.
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