Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/172

154 window they could look into a theatre and see the stage.

All rushed at once and beheld an opera in full blast, heartily enjoying the unusual advantages of their position; for not only could they hear the warblers, but see them when the curtain was down. What a thing it was to see Donna Anna do up her back hair, Don Giovanni dance a jig, the stately Ottavio imbibe refreshment out of a black bottle, and the ghostly Commander prance like a Punchinello as they got him into position.

The others soon succumbed to sleep; but, till long after midnight, old Livy wandered like a ghost from the front balcony, with the lovely lake, to the closet window and its dramatic joys, feeling that no moment of that memorable night should be lost, for what other traveller could boast that she ever went to the opera wrapped in a yellow bedquilt?

On the morrow a few pictures of Luini before breakfast, and then more sailing over lakes, and more driving in festive diligences to Menaggio, where a boat like a market wagon without wheels bore them genteelly to Cadenabbia, and a week of repose on the banks of Lago Como.