Meantime, Geraldine and her nieces had a home life, reading, studying Italian, drawing with endless pleasure, and the young ones walking about the chestnut-covered slopes.  She sat in the gardens or drove with Mrs. White in her donkey-chaise, and would have been full of enjoyment but for the abiding anxiety about Gerald.  It was rather a relief not to be living in the same house with the Whites, whose hospitality and magnificence were rather oppressive.  Mr. White wanted to have everything admired, and its cost appreciated; and Adeline, though clever enough, had provoking similarities and dissimilarities to her sisters.  The same might be said of Maura, to whom Francie at first took a great fancy, but Anna, who had seen more of the world, had a sense of distrust.

“There’s something fawning about her ways,” said she, “and I don’t know whether she is quite sincere.”

“Perhaps it is only being half Greek,” said Geraldine.

However, the two families met every day, and Mrs. White called their intercourse “such a boon, such a charming friendship,” all unaware that there was no real confidence or affection.

They had not long been seated when the little Italian messenger boy brought them a budget of letters.  Of course the first that Geraldine opened was in her nephew’s writing.  It had been written at intervals throughout the voyage, and finished on landing at New York.

Passing over the expressions of unabated affection, and explanation of the need of removing Ludmilla out of reach of her natural guardians, with the date on the second day of the voyage, the diary continued: 

“Whom, as the fates would have it, should I have encountered but the Cacique!  Yes, old Fernan and Marilda have the stateliest of state-rooms in this same liner, and he was as much taken aback as I was when we ran against one another over a destitute and disconsolate Irish family in the steerage.  Marilda is as yet invisible, as is my poor little Lida.  It is unlucky, for the good man is profuse in his offers of patronage, and I don’t mean to be patronized.”

Then, after some clever descriptions of the fellow second-class passengers in his own lively vein, perhaps a little forced, so as not to betray more than he intended, that he felt them uncongenial, there came—-

“Lida is up again; she is a sweet little patient person, and I cannot withstand Fernan’s wish to present her to his wife, who remains prostrate at present, and will till we get out of the present stiff breeze and its influences.

“12th.-—The presentation is over, and it has ended in Lida devoting herself to the succour of Marilda, and likewise of her maid, who is a good deal worse than herself.

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