the wind, roses and hollyhocks beckoned from white-walled gardens; and
before they had done with exclaiming and rejoicing, the Mediterranean
shot into view, intensely blue, with white fringes of foam, white sails
blowing across, white gulls flying above it, and over all a sky of the
same exquisite blue, whose clouds were white as the drifting sails on
the water below, and they were at Marseilles.

It was like a glimpse of Paradise to eyes fresh from autumnal grays and
glooms, as they sped along the lovely coast, every curve and turn
showing new combinations of sea and shore, olive-crowned cliff and
shining mountain-peak. With every mile the blue became bluer, the wind
softer, the feathery verdure more dense and summer-like. Hyeres and
Cannes and Antibes were passed, and then, as they rounded a long point,
came the view of a sunshiny city lying on a sunlit shore; the train
slackened its speed, and they knew that their journey's end was come and
they were in Nice.

The place seemed to laugh with gayety as they drove down the Promenade
des Anglais and past the English garden, where the band was playing
beneath the acacias and palm-trees. On one side was a line of
bright-windowed hotels and _pensions_, with balconies and striped
awnings; on the other, the long reach of yellow sand-beach, where ladies
were grouped on shawls and rugs, and children ran up and down in the
sun, while beyond stretched the waveless sea. The December sun felt as
warm as on a late June day at home, and had the same soft caressing
touch. The pavements were thronged with groups of leisurely-looking
people, all wearing an unmistakable holiday aspect; pretty girls in
correct Parisian costumes walked demurely beside their mothers, with
cavaliers in attendance; and among these young men appeared now and
again the well-known uniform of the United States Navy.