"If she will only go, we will do all
we can."
"When it is time, let the two porters come in here with the chair and
take her away," answered Beatrice. "Dear mamma! She will be much too
lazy to resist. What fun it will be!"
And everything was done as Beatrice had wished. San Miniato made a list
of things absolutely indispensable to the Marchesa. The number of
articles was about two hundred and their bulk filled a boat which was
despatched early in the following afternoon to be rowed over to Tragara
and unloaded before the party arrived.
Ruggiero and his brother worked hard at the preparations, silent,
untiring and efficient as usual, but delighted in their hearts at the
prospect of something less monotonous than the daily sail or the daily
row within sight of Sorrento. To men who have knocked about the sea for
years, from Santa Cruz to Sebastopol, the daily life of a sailor on a
little pleasure boat lacks interest, and if circumstances had been,
different Ruggiero would probably have shipped before now as boatswain
on board one of the neat schooners which are yearly built at the Piano
di Sorrento, to be sold with their cargoes of salt as soon as they reach
Buenos Ayres.
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