Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/181

Rh except that half frozen in the basin of the fountain above which leaned their favorite old Triton, with an icicle on the end of his nose.

"I must go and attend to this. The poor will suffer; we may be able to help," said Livy, forgetting her bones, and beginning to scramble on her fur boots, as if the safety of the city depended on her.

The others followed suit, and leaving Jokerella to ravage the table, they hurried forth to see what Father Tiber was up to. A most reprehensible prank, apparently, for the lower parts of the city were under water, and many of the great streets already as full of boats as Venice.

The Corso was a deep and rapid stream, and the shopkeepers were disconsolately paddling about, trying to rescue their property.

"Our dresses, our beautiful new dresses, where are they now!" wailed the girls, surveying Mazzoni's grand store, with water Up to the balcony, where many milliners wrung their hands, lamenting.

The Piazza del Popolo was a lake, with the four stone lions just visible, and still spouting water, though it was a drug in the market. In at the open