Quite by accident as it seemed, the Sorority of the Camellia Buds had turned itself from a society instituted for mutual protection and fun into a Crusaders' union, pledged, like Spenser's Red Cross Knight, to avenge the wrongs of distressed damsels in the junior forms. The ring of battle certainly added a spice of excitement to their secret. It was much more interesting to interfere personally on behalf of their protégées than to place debatable matters before the prefects. If war were involved with another sorority it could not be helped. And war there undoubtedly was. Bertha and Mabel, too clever to court open ignominy, desisted for the present from biscuit-snatching, but sought other means of retaliation. It was unfortunate for Irene and Lorna that Mabel had been apportioned to them as a roommate. Both she and Elsie were members of the rival sorority, so there was division in No. 3 dormitory. Sometimes the opposing factions would not speak to one another at all. Elsie was more stand-off than actively disagreeable and kept herself to her own cubicle, but Mabel was openly annoying. She transgressed every rule of dormitory etiquette, dashed for[67] the bathroom instead of waiting her due turn, dumped her belongings on to other people's chairs, spread the center table with her papers, fidgeted during study hours, and in various ways made herself objectionable.

Irene and Lorna, as sworn buddies, cemented yet more firmly the bond between them, and supported one another on every possible occasion. Irene was really growing fond of Lorna. Though the latter might be reserved it was something to find a ready listener and sympathizer. As a rule we can't deliberately choose our soul-friends. Fate just seems to send them along and we must accept them with all their faults or go without. It certainly does not do to be too particular, or we may soon find ourselves chumless in the world. Irene was rather lovelorn for Peachy, but that bright little American, besides being in an upper dormitory, was before-appropriated by other "heart-to-hearties," and, though she held out the palm of good fellowship, was too staunch a character to desert old friends for new.

"She's just sweet to me, but I don't count first," decided Irene. "Well, it's no use being jealous. If you can't have the moon you must be content with a star, that's all. It's a vast amount better than nothing."

Lorna might more aptly be described as a planet than a star, for her thoughts had started to revolve round Irene in a fixed orbit. As regards her half of the bargain she was absolutely content. She adored[68] her buddy, and blessed the lot that had coupled their names together. She had not before made a real friend, and Irene's happy-go-lucky, affectionate, confiding disposition appealed to her. She began to try to protect her and look after her. It was really something of the mother instinct cropping out. She had never possessed a sister or anything little of her own to love, and it was a new experience to find a girl, rather small and younger than herself, who clung to her and seemed actually fond of her. Life, which had hitherto been chilly and self-centered, suddenly grew warm. She had been used to pose as one who disliked school, but with this fresh interest her views on the subject underwent a change.

Any girl must indeed have been hard to please who was not satisfied with the Villa Camellia and its beautiful Italian garden. All through the month of February flowers were in bloom there which in England only peep out timidly in April or May, and often will not brave a northern climate at all. The front of the house was covered with a glorious purple bougainvillea, violets bloomed under the orange and lemon trees, and the camellias, from which the villa took its name, flourished in profusion, growing as great trees ten or twelve feet high and covered with rose-colored, white, or scarlet blossoms. Iris, freesias, narcissus, red salvias, marguerites, pansies, pink peonies, wallflowers, polyanthus, petunias, stocks, genistas, arbutula, cinerarias, begonias, and belladonna-lilies kept up a brave display in the[69] border, and, though they would be more beautiful and luxuriant later on in the season, they nevertheless dispelled the idea of winter. The general temperature at Fossato resembled an English April, the sunshine was warm, but the wind was apt to be chilly, and at night-time it was quite cold, though never frosty. The central heating apparatus was kept going in the school, and the girls, though they might run about without coats in the sunshine, were always required to have a warm jersey at hand, for the wind at this season could be treacherous, and those unused to the climate, deceived by its brightness and wealth of flowers, were very liable to catch chills and to be laid up with feverish colds as the result of their own imprudence. Sometimes indeed a bitter sirocco wind would blow, and bring torrents of rain to turn the blue sea and sky to a leaden gray and to blot out the view of Naples and Vesuvius, but it seldom lasted more than a few days, and in a land of drought was welcomed to refresh the gardens and to fill the cisterns and water-tanks.

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[70] 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[71] 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.

Antonio, with his big key, unlocked the great gate, they filed through into the eucalyptus-shaded road, and in ten minutes they had left the quiet school behind them, and were down in the gay little town of Fossato. It was new and wonderful to Irene. The wide main street with its intense brilliant sunshine contrasting with the deep shade of the narrow side streets, the open shop-fronts with their displays of picturesque wares, the stalls of fruit and vegetables sold by quaint country vendors, the balconies full of flowers, the kindly, dark-eyed, smiling people, the pretty peasant children clattering about in heelless wooden shoes, the brightly painted carts and the[72] horses decorated with flowers and feathers as if for a perpetual May Day, all made up a scene that was more like a portion of a play than a piece of real life, and made her almost able to imagine herself upon the stage of a theater. They had reached a great square, where leafless trees were covered with a beautiful purple blossom, something like mezereon. From a marble fountain bareheaded women, with exquisitely arranged dark tresses and bright handkerchiefs folded shawl-wise round their shoulders, were drawing water in brass pitchers, and chattering the soft southern dialect with the pretty tuneful Neapolitan voices that speak like singing and sing like opera. An equestrian statue of Garibaldi stood on a pedestal in the midst of a flowerbed of gay geraniums, and below, in the shadow, a military officer, with a gorgeous pale blue cloak draped over one shoulder, was talking to two Italian soldiers whose plumed hats were adorned with shining cocks' feathers.

Miss Bickford, in the van of the Villa Camellia queue, strode on, taking no notice, beyond a firm shake of the head, of the various interruptions that met her path—the drivers who offered their carriages for hire, the smiling women who thrust forward baskets of oranges for sale, the beguiling children who held out little brown hands and begged for soldi (halfpennies), and the post-card vendors who spread out sets of colored views of the neighborhood. It was a good thing that Miss Parr was at[73] the rear of the procession to keep order, or the girls would have succumbed to some of these temptations and have broken rank, an unpardonable offense in the eyes of the school authorities, who wished to keep up the prestige of their establishment in the estimation of the town, and to emulate the convent school on the hill, whose pupils marched along the high street as demurely as young nuns.

Turning out of the piazza they walked alongside a deep natural gorge which divided Fossato from the open country. This immense ravine was a fearsome place, with a sheer descent of many hundreds of feet; its jagged rocks were clothed with bushes and creepers, and clefts and the openings of caves could be seen amongst the greenery. The girls leaned on the low wall and shuddered as they gazed down the precipice.

"Antonio and Dominica say that dwarfs live in the caves down there," remarked Peachy. "Half the people in the town believe in them, but they're too afraid to go and see because the dwarfs have 'the evil eye,' and would bring them bad luck."

"What superstitious nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "How can they make up such stuff?"

"Not altogether such nonsense as you think," corrected Miss Bickford, who was a student of archæology; "indeed I find it intensely interesting. It's a case of survival of tradition. A few thousand years ago no doubt a race of little short dark Stone Age men actually lived in those caves, and took good care[74] to avenge themselves on any of the taller, stronger tribes who interfered with them and tried to push them out of their territory. The remembrance of them would be handed down long after they had become extinct, and, of course their doings were exaggerated, and their cunning tricks were set down to magic. Just as the prehistoric monsters lingered as dragons and firedrakes, so the small early inhabitants of Europe have passed into dwarfs and brownies and pixies. If anybody cared to dig in those caves I dare say flint weapons might be found. It's a chance for the local antiquarian society if they'd only take it."

Leaving the gorge the party turned up a steep and very narrow alley between walls nine or ten feet high. At the tops of these walls were raised gardens planted with orange and lemon trees, whose fruit, in all stages of green, gold, and yellow, overshadowed the path. Across some of them were erected shelters of reeds or plaited grass, to prevent too quick ripening, but in some of the orchards the crop was ready, and workers were busy with ladders and baskets gathering their early harvests. It was a picturesque route, for the sides of the deep walls were covered with beautiful maidenhair ferns, and over the tops hung geraniums or clumps of white iris or purple stocks or clusters of little red roses. Here and there, at a corner, was a wayside shrine with a faded picture of the Madonna, and a quaint brass lamp in front, and perhaps some flowers laid[75] there by loving hands; dark-eyed smiling little children were playing about and giving each other rides in home-made hand-carts, and at one point the girls stood aside to let pass a donkey so loaded with tiny bamboo trees that it looked a mere moving mass of green.

At length the deep alley between the orange orchards gave way to a different scene. They had been climbing steadily uphill, and now found themselves above the fruit zone and among the olive groves. The high walls had disappeared, and the path ascended by a series of steps. Gray olive trees were on either side, and on the bordering banks grew lovely wild flowers, starry purple anemones, jack-in-the-pulpit lilies, yellow oxalis, moon-daisies, and the beautiful genista which we treasure as a conservatory plant in England. As it was country the girls were allowed to break rank, and keenly enjoyed gathering bouquets; they scrambled up the banks, vying with one another in getting the best specimens. The view from the heights was glorious: below them stretched the gray-green of the olive groves, broken here and there by the bright pink blossoms of a peach tree; the white houses of Fossato gleamed among the dark glossy foliage of its orange orchards, and beyond stretched the beautiful bay of Naples, with its sea a blaze of blue, and old Vesuvius smoking in the distance like a warning of trouble to come.

It was at this point of the walk that Irene, foolish,[76] luckless Irene, made a fatal mistake, and, as Miss Bickford afterwards told her, "wrecked the whole excursion and spoiled everybody's pleasure." She beckoned Lorna and ran up a hill to obtain a higher vantage ground, then, instead of descending by the route she had come, she insisted upon taking a short cut to rejoin the path and catch up with the rest of the party. Now neither Lorna nor Irene was aware that the mountain was a network of many paths leading to little vineyards and gardens, and that when they ran down the opposite side of the slope they were striking a fresh alley, altogether different from the one along which Miss Bickford was leading her flock. For quite a long way the two girls walked on, thinking they were in advance of the others and had stolen a march upon them. Then they sat down and waited, but nobody came. It was a considerable time before it dawned upon them that they were separated from the rest of the party.

"We've come wrong somehow," said Lorna, in much consternation.

"What had we better do?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps they're not far off. I'll try if I can make them hear."

"I wouldn't shout," objected Lorna, but she was too late, for Irene was already letting off her full lung power in a gigantic coo-e-e. It had a totally different effect from what she anticipated. No schoolgirls with Villa Camellia hats made their ap[77]pearance, but some rough looking Italian youths scrambled over a fence and came sniggering towards them. Their manner was so objectionable and offensive that the girls turned and ran. They pelted down the path anywhere, quite oblivious of the direction they were taking, and, as a matter of fact, branching yet farther away from their original route. They could hear footsteps and giggling laughter behind, and they were growing extremely terrified when to their immense relief they saw in front of them an elderly peasant woman coming from the town. She had a bright yellow handkerchief round her neck and carried on her head a big basket containing flasks of oil, loaves of bread, and some vegetables. She stopped in some astonishment as Lorna and Irene rushed panting up to her, then glimpsing the lads she seemed to grasp the situation, and called out angrily to them in Italian, whereupon they promptly and rapidly disappeared. As she had reached the gateway of her own garden she motioned the girls to enter, and they gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to seek sanctuary. A large archway led into a paved courtyard, on one side of which was a little brown house, and on the other a small chapel, quite a picture with its quaint half-Moorish tower and two large bells. Their new friend seemed to be the caretaker, for she escorted them inside to show them, with much pride, an altar-piece attributed to Perugino and some ancient faded frescoes of haloed saints. She gave them a peep into her house[78] too, and they were deeply interested to see the unfamiliar foreign home, not comfortable according to British or American ideas of comfort, but with a certain charm of its own. There was a big dark room on the ground floor with an orange press, various agricultural implements, and numberless baskets for gathering fruit; there was a bare kitchen with a wood fire and a table spread with cups and dishes; then up a winding stair was a bedroom with walls colored sky blue, and a veranda that looked down over a glorious orange orchard.

"Oh, I'd adore to go out there!" said Irene, pointing to the path that led between the fruit-laden trees, and their hostess evidently divined her meaning, for she not only led her guests into the garden, but fetched a ladder, climbed a tree, and plucked each of them a whole cluster of oranges surrounded by a bunch of leaves.

The girls were so delighted with their entertainment in this Italian cottage that they hardly wished to tear themselves away, yet a vision of Miss Bickford's reproachful face began to hover before their eyes, and Lorna at last suggested that they must be moving.

"I hope those abominable boys aren't waiting about anywhere outside," shivered Irene.

The same thought seemed to have struck their hostess, for she called an elderly man, evidently her husband, who was pruning vines, and began a catechism as to where her visitors lived. Lorna replied[79] as well as her knowledge of Italian allowed, and at the mention of the Villa Camellia the pair nodded in comprehension. After a brief conversation with his wife in an undertone the old man offered himself as guide, and undertook to escort the truants safely back to school again, a proposal which they thankfully accepted. It would indeed have been difficult for them to find their own way among the various interlacing paths, and they were particularly glad to have his protection against possible ragazzi. There was tremendous trouble waiting for them at the Villa Camellia. Poor Miss Parr had collapsed almost into hysterics, and Miss Bickford with two other teachers had returned to the hillside on a further search, while Miss Rodgers was communicating by telephone with the Fossato police station, and offering a reward for any news of their whereabouts. Irene had thought the principal could be stern, but she never knew how her eyes could flash before that interview in the study. Both girls came out quaking like jellies and weeping for all to hear.

"Did you catch it hot?" inquired Peachy, sympathetically linking arms with the truants.

"Rather! It isn't the punishments so much, it's that she made us so ashamed."

"Our parole won't be trusted till after half-term."

"We didn't mean to run away."

"It was really quite an accident."

"Cheer up!" consoled Peachy. "Miss Rodgers cuts like a steel knife, but she doesn't bear grudges.[80] I will say that for her. With some teachers you'd never hear the last of it, but once you've worked off your impositions you'll be quite in favor again. Whatever possessed you to go and do it though?"

"Just our wretched bad luck, I suppose," said Irene, rubbing her eyes as she turned up the passage and deposited her confiscated cluster of oranges, as directed, in the pantry.