Carlota arrived the day after I did. She looks like the little statuette of Le Brun on Mother’s bookcase, only her hair hangs in two long braids. She is more Italian than American in her looks, but seems to be very proud of her American father. Helen would love her ways. She has a maid, Pippa, from Florence, middle-aged, who used to be her nurse. Isn’t that medieval and Juliet-like? But she wears black and white continually, no gorgeous raiment at all, black in the daytime, white for evening. I feel like Pierrette beside her, but Cousin Beth says the girls of our age dress very simply abroad. The Contessa is coming out to spend the week end with us, and will take Carlota and me back with her for a few days. I’ll tell you all about her next time. We go for a long trip in the car every day, but it is awfully cold and bleak still. I feel exactly like Queen Bess, the Angora cat, I want to hug the fires all the time, and Carlota says she can’t bear our New England winters. At this time of the year, she says spring has come in Tuscany and all along the southern coast. She has inherited her father’s gift for modelling, and gave me a little figurine of a fisher boy standing on his palms, for a paper weight. It is perfect. I wish I could have it cast in bronze. You know, I think I’d rather be a sculptor than a painter. Someway the figures seem so full of life, but then, Cousin Beth says, they lack color. I mustn’t start talking shop to you when your head is full of forestry. Let me know how Piney takes to the idea of going west, and be sure and remember to feed Cherilee. Dorrie will think of her chickens and neglect the canary sure. And help Mother all you can. With love to all, Jean. “Humph,” said Kit, loftily, when the letter arrived and was duly digested by the circle. “I suppose Jean feels as if the whole weight of this household rested on her anxious young shoulders.” “Well, we do miss her awfully,” Doris hurried to say. “But the canary is all right.” “Yes, and so is everything else. Wait till I write to my elder sister and relieve her mind. Let her cavort gaily in motor cars, and live side by each with Angora cats in the lap of luxury. Who cares? The really great ones of the earth have dwelt in penury and loneliness on the solitary heights.” “You look so funny brandishing that dish towel, and spouting, Kit,” Helen said, placidly. “I’m sure I can understand how Jean feels and I like it. It is odd about Carlota wearing black and white, isn’t it? I wish Jean had told more about her. I shall always imagine her in a little straight gown of dull violet velvet, with a cap of pearls.” “Isn’t that nice? How do you imagine me, Helenita darling?” Kit struck a casual attitude while she wiped the pudding dish.