Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/126

124 drowned; and my daughter was brought home wet to the skin, and all the colour gone out of her green silk—quite spoilt."

Here Mrs. Higgs paused for a moment, and drew out a huge red pocket-handkerchief, with which her face was for some minutes confounded. Emily, really shocked, remained silent, till her companion, who found talking very efficacious for her complaints, went on again. "Besides all her sorrow, Carry had caught cold; for she had been in the water, only had got picked up by a boat that was passing, and she was very ill: so, as I said before, she has been the cause of our staying in these here foreign parts. The doctors said the climate was so mild. I am sure we should have been a deal warmer in our own parlour, with a good coal fire, and carpets and curtains. Here, all you can get is a little charcoal in a box—for all the world like a warming-pan, without a handle, and with holes in the top. We've had no Christmas pudding—the boys have been left at school—and people may talk what they please about sunshine and Italy: my say is, that a winter in Rome is no joke." Emily duly sympathised with her; but,