Abroad with the Jimmies, page 1 by Lilian Bell
<< Return to Title Details & Download2
.
With which statement, as the flushed and nervous singer, who responds to friendly clappings, comes forward, bows, sings, and retires, so do I, and the curtain falls on the Jimmies and Bee and me, all kissing our hands to the gallery.
CHAPTER
I.
Our House-boat at Henley
II. Paris
III. Strasburg and Baden-Baden
IV. Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Bayreuth
V. The Passion Play
VI. Munich to the Achensee
VII. Dancing in the Austrian Tyrol
VIII. Salzburg
IX. Ischl
X. Vienna
XI. My First Interview with Tolstoy
XII. At one of the Tolstoy Receptions
CHAPTER I
OUR HOUSE-BOAT AT HENLEY
It speaks volumes for an amiability I have always claimed for myself through sundry fierce disputes on the subject with my sister, that, even after two years of travel in Europe with her and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, they should still wish for my company for a journey across France and Germany to Russia. Bee says it speaks volumes for the tempers of the Jimmies, but then Bee is my sister, or to put it more properly, I am Bee's sister, and what woman is a heroine to her own sister?
In any event I am not. Bee thinks I am a creature of feeble intelligence who must be "managed." Bee loves to "manage" people, and I, who love to watch her circuitous, diplomatic, velvety, crooked way to a straight end, allow myself to be so "managed;" and so after safely disposing of Billy in the grandmotherly care of Mamma for another six months, Bee and I gaily took ship and landed safely at the door of the Cecil, having been escorted up from Southampton by Jimmie.
While repeated journeys to Europe lose the thrill of expectant uncertainty which one's first held, yet there is something very pleasing about "going back." And so we were part