"Polyphemus was a horrible giant. I read about him once, and I don't
want to see him," observed Amy, from her safe protected perch in her
mother's lap.

"He may not be so bad now as he was in those old times. Some missionary
may have come across him and converted him. If he were good, you
wouldn't mind his being big, would you?" suggested Katy.

"N-o," replied Amy, doubtfully; "but it would take a great lot of
missionaries to make _him_ good, I should think. One all alone would be
afraid to speak to him. We shan't really see him, shall we?"

"I don't believe we shall; and if we stuff cotton in our ears and look
the other way, we need not hear the sirens sing," said Katy, who was in
the highest spirits.--"And oh, Polly dear, there is one delightful thing
I forgot to tell you about. The captain says he shall stay in Leghorn
all day to-morrow taking on freight, and we shall have plenty of time to
run up to Pisa and see the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and
everything else. Now, that is something Ulysses didn't do! I am so glad
I didn't die of measles when I was little, as Rose Red used to say." She
gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke, and caught it again as
it fell, very much as the Katy Carr of twelve years ago might have done.

"What a child you are!" said Mrs. Ashe, approvingly; "you never seem out
of sorts or tired of things."

"Out of sorts? I should think not! And pray why should I be,
Polly dear?"