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 "Perhaps not, but they might at least do their hair before breakfast and put on a thing like that, don't you think?"

He was just in time to save a cup, which she was on the point of brushing down with her sleeve.

"You see how practical it is. Now, drink your tea; you said you were thirsty."

She discovered suddenly that Cesca's whole stock of coloured stockings were hanging to dry on the balcony, and she removed them a little nervously.

While he was having his tea he explained:

"I lay awake last night thinking, almost until dawn, and then, of course, I overslept, so had no time to stop at the latteria on my way. I think we should go to Via Cassia to that anemone place of yours."

"Anemone place." Jenny laughed. "When you were a boy did you, too, have special places for violets and bluebells, and kept them a secret from the others and went there all alone every year?"

"Of course I had. I know a beech grove by the old road to Holmenkollen, where there are real scented violets."

"I know it too," she interrupted triumphantly, "to the right, just before the road branches off to Sorkedal."

"Exactly. I had some other places too, on Fredriksborg and"

"I must go in and put on my dress," said Jenny.

"Put on the one you had yesterday, please!" he called after her.

"It will get so dusty"—but she changed her mind in the same moment. Why should she not make herself look nice? The old black silk had been her best for a good many years; she need not treat it with such deference any more.

"I don't care! but it fastens at the back, and Cesca's not in."

"Come out here and I'll button it for you. I am an expert at it. It seems to me I have done nothing all my