Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/152

134 kindly hostess, and the jolliest old host ever seen I what more could the human heart desire?

Vevey was swarming with refugees. Don Carlos, or the Duke de Madrid, as he was called, was there with his Duchess and court, plotting heaven knows what up at his villa, with the grave, shabby men who haunted the town.

Queen Isabella reigned at one hotel, and Spanish grandees pervaded the place. There were several at Pension Paradis, and no one guessed what great, creatures they were till a fête day arrived, and the grim, gray men blossomed out into counts, marquises, and generals covered with orders, stars, and crosses splendid to behold.

One particularly silent, shabby little man with a shaven head and fine black eyes, who was never seen to smile, became an object of interest on that occasion by appearing in a gorgeous uniform with a great gilt grasshopper hanging down his back from a broad green ribbon. Who was he? What did the' grasshopper mean? Where did he go to in a fine carnage, and what was he plotting with the other Carlists, who dodged in and out of his room at all hours?