All that was in the morning, when the spaces under the big tents on the outrunning piers of the “stabilimenti” were crowded to the very edge with cheery, chattering groups, the ladies embroidering as fast as they talked, the children romping, the young men making love, and the old people, who would not face the cold joy of a plunge, smiling benignly on it all. The piers were low, and a sudden gust of wind would fling the salt water up without warning; then there were shrieks mingled with laughter, flurrying of skirts and scraping of chairs and snatching up babies, and all the fun of settling down again, only to renew the game at the next shower. This gathering only took place in the morning. As soon as the sun was right overhead, the ladies packed their fancy work into their reticules, wiped the remains of “ciambelle” from the children’s mouths, straightened their hats—all with an incessant fire of chatter like that of a tree full of roosting sparrows suddenly disturbed—and away everybody trailed along the blazing white boulevard for home, mid-day dinner, and the rapturous quiet of the siesta afterwards. I believe I was a little jealous, even then, of the kind of official ownership which the Ambassador and his family seemed to claim in the man who, though neither of us dreamed it yet, was very soon to be my husband. Anyway, I permitted myself an occasional mood of pleasant melancholy towards evening when my own dear people, like all the others who had any deference at all for public opinion, were driving round and round the public gardens, listening to the band. Two of our party had agreed to slap public opinion quite brutally in the face; these were my erratic sister and her equally erratic fiancé. They hired a little sailing boat, and day after day, towards four o’clock, went off by themselves, unchaperoned save by the boatman, for long expeditions, whence they returned, gloriously happy and hungry, just in time for a very late dinner. Once and once only they lured me out—why, I could not imagine at the moment, as I was a bad sailor in those days and did not in the least want to go, but I soon found out their wicked motive. I had taken it upon myself to order the meals while we were at Leghorn, as my mother thought it would be good practice for me. Now there was one dish which we all, except Annie and Erich, particularly disliked, a fry of very bony, very rank-smelling crayfish, called “spannocchi.” After one trial I had steadily refused to have it brought to the table. But those two young monsters liked “spannocchi,” and they laid their plot quite cleverly and everything turned out just as they intended. We beat out to sea, the weather was squally, and in a short time I was lying, a seasick heap, in the bottom of the boat, begging with tears to be taken home. This was what they had been waiting for. “Not unless you promise us spannocchi for dinner to-morrow!” they exclaimed in a breath, grinning down at me in my misery.