Page:Wha Katy Did Next - Coolidge (1886).djvu/328

 others circling round her head. She was looking up and calling them in soft tones. The sunlight caught the little downy curls on her head and made them glitter. The flying doves lit on the pavement, and crowded round her, their pearl and gray and rose-tinted and white feathers, their scarlet feet and gold-ringed eyes, making a shifting confusion of colors, as they hopped and fluttered and cooed about the little maid, unstartled even by her clear laughter. Close by stood Nurse Swift, observant and grimly pleased.

The mother looked on with happy tears in her eyes. "Oh, Katy, think what she was a few weeks ago and look at her now! Can I ever be thankful enough?"

She squeezed Katy's hand convulsively and walked away, turning her head now and then for another glance at Amy and the doves; while Ned and Katy silently crossed to the landing and got into a gondola. It was the perfection of a Venice evening, with silver waves lapsing and lulling under a rose and opal sky; and the sense that it was their last