It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that the Villa Camellia was of necessity run somewhat on convent lines. In Italy young girls do not walk about unchaperoned as in England and America, but are always very closely escorted by older people, and it was advisable to keep to the customs of the country. The pupils obtained most of their exercise inside their own garden. On Sundays they paraded to the British church, but otherwise they did not very often go into Fossato. Once a week, if the weather were fine, a limited number were taken for an expedition, but Irene had been at school for some weeks before this good fortune fell to her lot. One lucky Wednesday, however, she found her name and Lorna's written on the list of "exeats" on the notice-board, and flew to announce the glad tidings to her chum. "Twelve of us, with Miss Bickford and Miss Parr as leaders. Won't it be ripping? It says Monte Pellegrino. Where's that? The big hill over there? Oh, great! I love a climb! I'm just dancing to go! I feel as if I had been boxed up inside these big walls for years and years. I only wish Peachy and Delia had been on the list too." "But we are!" exclaimed Delia's excited voice behind her. "Stella and Marjorie both have colds, so we've swapped places with them, and they'll go next time instead. Isn't it fine!" "I'm tingling right down to my toes," agreed Peachy, her jolly little freckled face one wide grin. "It's going to be an afternoon of afternoons." "If it doesn't rain," said Lorna, eyeing the sky suspiciously. "Oh, don't be a wet blanket! It's no use courting trouble, honey, as Willy Shakespeare says somewhere. Oh, well, if it wasn't Willy Shakespeare it was somebody else who said it, and it's just as true anyway. Take your umbrella and wait till the rain comes down before you grumble. I've got an exeat and I didn't expect it, and I'm going off my head a little. That's all! Don't worry yourselves about me. I'm sane at the bottom." With Peachy and Delia prancing about and hardly able to regulate their satisfaction the expedition promised to be a lively one, though the harum-scarum pair calmed down in the presence of Miss Bickford, and assumed a deportment of due decorum. The favored twelve were half seniors and half Transition, the remaining pair of the latter consisting of Bertha Ford and Mabel Hughes. The Camellia Buds exchanged eloquent glances at the sight of their arch-enemies, but wisely forbore to make any provocative remarks; Delia indeed even murmured something pleasant about the excursion to which Bertha grunted a reply, so the party started off in apparent harmony.