"Well, why shouldn't we board there!" said her friend. "You know we
meant to look for rooms as soon as we were rested and had found out a
little about the place. Let us walk on and see what the Pension Suisse
is like. If the inside is as pleasant as the outside, we could not do
better, I should think."

"Oh, I do hope all the rooms are not already taken," said Katy, who had
fallen in love at first sight with the Pension Suisse. She felt quite
oppressed with anxiety as they rang the bell.

The Pension Suisse proved to be quite as charming inside as out. The
thick stone walls made deep sills and embrasures for the casement
windows, which were furnished with red cushions to serve as seats and
lounging-places. Every window seemed to command a view, for those which
did not look toward the sea looked toward the mountains. The house was
by no means full, either. Several sets of rooms were to be had; and Katy
felt as if she had walked straight into the pages of a romance When Mrs.
Ashe engaged for a month a delightful suite of three, a sitting-room and
two sleeping-chambers, in a round tower, with a balcony overhanging the
water, and a side window, from which a flight of steps led down into a
little walled garden, nestled in among the masonry, where tall
laurestinus and lemon trees grew, and orange and brown wallflowers made
the air sweet. Her contentment knew no bounds.

"I am so glad that I came," she told Mrs. Ashe. "I never confessed it to
you before; but sometimes.--when we were sick at sea, you know, and when
it would rain all the time, and after Amy caught that cold in Paris--I
have almost wished, just for a minute or two at a time, that we hadn't.
But now I wouldn't not have come for the world! This is perfectly