Poor little Anne! Of all the family, to her the change was the
greatest grief. The tour on the Continent had been a dull affair to
her; she was of the age to weary of long confinement in the carriage
and in strange hotels, and too young to appreciate 'grown-up'
sights. Picture-galleries and cathedrals were only a drag to her,
and if the experiences that were put into Rosella's mouth for the
benefit of her untravelled sisters could have been written down,
they would have been as unconventional as Mark Twain's adventures.
Rosella went through the whole tour, and left a leg behind in the
hinge of a door, but in compensation brought home a Paris bonnet and
mantle. She seemed to have been her young mistress's chief comfort,
next to an occasional game of play with her father, or a walk,
looking in at the shop windows and watching marionettes, or, still
better, the wonderful sports of brown-legged street children,
without trying to make her speak French or Italian--in her eyes one
of the inflictions of the journey, in those of her elders the one
benefit she might gain. She had missed the petting to which she had
been accustomed from her grandfather and from all of us; and she had
absolutely counted the days till she could get home again, and had
fallen into dire disgrace for fits of crying when Ellen's weakness
caused delays.
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