Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/110

92 what she called "earthworms and cacti," being fond of stewed brains, baked eels, and thistles and andand [sic] pigweed chopped up in oil.

Such a droll night as the wanderers spent! No locks on the doors and no bells. Stairs leading straight up the gallery from the court-yard, carts going and coming, soft footsteps stealing up and down, whispers that sounded suspicious (though they were only orders to kill chickens and pick salad for the morrow), and a ghostly whistle that disturbed Lavinia so much, she at last draped herself in the green coverlet, and went boldly forth upon the balcony to see what it meant.

She intended to demand silence, in French that would strike terror to the soul of the bravest native. But when she saw that poor, dear, hard-worked garçon blacking boots by the light of the moon, her heart melted with pity; and, resolving to give him an extra fee, she silently retired to her stone-floored bower, and fell asleep in a stuffy little bed, whose orange curtains filled her dreams with volcanic eruptions, and conflagrations of the most lurid description.

At seven, an open carriage with a stout pair of