Forbes had her own hired
balcony, as became a wealthy and respectable Englishwoman. The girls had
a great basket full of bouquets with which to pelt their friends in the
crowd below; a store of moccoletti lay piled on the table behind, for it
was the last day of Carnival, and as soon as dusk came on the tapers were
to be lighted, to be as quickly extinguished by every means in everyone's
power. The crowd below was at its wildest pitch; the rows of stately
contadini alone sitting immovable as their possible ancestors, the
senators who received Brennus and his Gauls. Masks and white dominoes,
foreign gentlemen, and the riffraff of the city, slow-driving carriages,
showers of flowers, most of them faded by this time, everyone shouting
and struggling at that wild pitch of excitement which may so soon turn
into fury. The Forbes girls had given place at the window to their
mother and Ellinor, who were gazing half amused, half terrified, at the
mad parti-coloured movement below; when a familiar face looked up,
smiling a recognition; and "How shall I get to you?" was asked in
English, by the well-known voice of Canon Livingstone. They saw him
disappear under the balcony on which they were standing, but it was some
time before he made his appearance in their room. And when he did, he
was almost overpowered with greetings; so glad were they to see an East
Chester face.
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