It didn't need the little
steward's shocked remark, "Oh my! You never 'ave gone back to bed
again!" to make us feel ashamed.
However, we reach Marseilles to-day at noon, and, glorious thought,
the ship will stand still for twenty-four hours. Also there will be
letters!
This isn't a letter so much as a wail.
Don't scoff. I know I'm a coward.
_S.S.Scotia, Oct. 27_.
... A fountain-pen is really a great comfort. I am writing with my new
one, so this letter won't, I hope, be such a puzzle to decipher as my
pencil scrawl.
We are off again, but now the sun shines from a cloudless sky on a sea
of sapphire, and the passengers are sunning themselves on deck like
snails after a shower. I'm glad, after all, I didn't go back from
Marseilles by train.
When we reached Marseilles the rain was pouring, but that didn't
prevent us ("us" means G. and myself) from bounding on shore. We found
a dilapidated _fiacre_ driven by a still more dilapidated _cocher_,
who, for the sum of six francs, drove us to the town. I don't know
whether, ordinarily, Marseilles is a beautiful town or an ugly one.
Few people, I expect, would have seen anything attractive in it this
dark, rainy October afternoon, but to us it was a sort of Paradise
regained. We had tea at a cafe, real French tea tasting of hay-seed
and lukewarm water, and real French cakes; we wandered through the
streets, stopping to stare in at every shop window; we bought violets
to adorn ourselves, and picture-postcards, and sheets of foreign
stamps for Peter, and all the time the rain poured and the street
lamps were cheerily reflected in the wet pavements, and it was so
damp, and dark, and dirty, and home-like, we sloppered joyfully
through the mud and were happy for the first time for a whole week.
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