Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/148

130 decorated with ribbons and proudly displayed to the disgusted traveller.

Here in the rambling old Hotel des Bains, with its balconies, gardens, and queer little rooms, the wanderers reposed for a time. A Polish countess, with her lover, daughter, and governess, conferred distinction upon the house. An old Hungarian count, who labored under the delusion that he descended in a direct line from Zenobia, also adorned the scene. An artist with two pretty boys, named Alfred Constable Landseer Reynolds and Allston West Cuyp Vandyke, afforded Matilda much satisfaction.

English mammas with prim daughters of thirty or so still tied to their apron-strings were to be found, of course, for they are everywhere; also wandering French folk raving about the war one minute and tearing their hair over bad coffee the next.

Amanda read newspapers and talked politics with the old count; while Lavinia, with a paper bag of apricots under one arm and a volume of D'Israeli's novels under the other, spent her shining hours wandering from balcony to garden, enjoying the heat, which gave her a short respite from her woes.