Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/121

Rh "did overload the air." In came the family party, the Higgs's. Mrs. Higgs instantly knew Emily. "Lord, lord, miss, who would have thought of our meeting in these here outlandish parts!" Emily recognised her companion of the steam-boat, and replied with a good-natured inquiry, asking how she liked Italy? First glancing round to see whether she was observed—a needless precaution, Mr. Higgs, "her eldest hope," having put himself into a position (even on paper we cannot call it an attitude) of enthusiasm before the statue of the Madonna—while the two daughters were assuring an Italian count, as they called him, that they should like monstrously to be nuns, and he, as in duty bound, dwelt upon the loss which the world would thereby sustain:—"Like Italy?" said Mrs. Higgs—"not I; I hav'n't had a meal fit for a Christian this three months. Why, Lord love you! they are as dirty as ducks—you know what dirty animals ducks are—they'll eat any thing—not but what they are very good roasted, but it's all the difference being dead and alive." "A very just distinction," said Emily, while her companion paused to take breath and a peppermint lozenge.