Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/22

10 We are off again, but now the sun shines from a cloudless sky on a sea of sapphire, and the passengers are sunning themselves on deck like snails after a shower. I'm glad, after all, I didn't go back from Marseilles by train.

When we reached Marseilles the rain was pouring, but that didn't prevent us ("us" means G. and myself) from bounding on shore. We found a dilapidated fiacre driven by a still more dilapidated cocher, who, for the sum of six francs, drove us to the town. I don't know whether, ordinarily, Marseilles is a beautiful town or an ugly one. Few people, I expect, would have seen anything attractive in it this dark, rainy October afternoon, but to us it was a sort of Paradise regained. We had tea at a café, real French tea tasting of hay-seed and lukewarm water, and real French cakes; we wandered through the streets, stopping to stare in at every shop window; we bought violets to adorn ourselves, and picture-postcards, and sheets of foreign stamps for Peter, and all the time the rain poured and the street lamps were cheerily reflected in the wet pavements, and it was so damp, and dark, and dirty, and home-like, we stoppered joyfully through the mud and were happy for the first time for a whole week. The thought of letters