"There was no end of smoke, you know, and it was awfully unpleasant,
and I got to the top I don't know how, when suddenly I fainted."

Minnie paused for a moment, and looked at her sister with a rueful
face.

"Well, now, dear, darling, the very--next--thing--that I remember is
this, and it's horrid: I felt awful jolts, and found myself in the
arms of a great, big, horrid man, who was running down the side of the
mountain with dreadfully long jumps, and I felt as though he was some
horrid ogre carrying poor me away to his den to eat me up. But I
didn't say one word. I wasn't much frightened. I felt provoked. I knew
it was that horrid man. And then I wondered what you'd say; and I
thought, oh, how you _would_ scold! And then I knew that this horrid
man would chase me away from Italy; and then I would have to go to
Turkey, and have my life saved by a Mohammedan. And that was horrid.

"Well, at last he stopped and laid me down. He was very gentle, though
he was so big. I kept my eyes shut, and lay as still as a mouse,
hoping that Ethel would come. But Ethel didn't. She was coming down
with the chair, you know, and her men couldn't run like mine. And oh,
Kitty darling, you have no _idea_ what I suffered. This horrid man was
rubbing and pounding at my hands, and sighing and groaning. I stole a
little bit of a look at him--just a little bit of a bit--and saw tears
in his eyes, and a wild look of fear in his face. Then I knew that he
was going to propose to me on the spot, and kept my eyes shut tighter
than ever.

"Well, at last he hurt my hands so that I thought I'd try to make him