May, and often will not brave a northern
climate at all. The front of the house was covered with a glorious
purple bougainvillea, violets bloomed under the orange and lemon trees,
and the camellias, from which the villa took its name, flourished in
profusion, growing as great trees ten or twelve feet high and covered
with rose-colored, white, or scarlet blossoms. Iris, freesias,
narcissus, red salvias, marguerites, pansies, pink peonies, wallflowers,
polyanthus, petunias, stocks, genistas, arbutula, cinerarias, begonias,
and belladonna-lilies kept up a brave display in the border, and, though
they would be more beautiful and luxuriant later on in the season, they
nevertheless dispelled the idea of winter. The general temperature at
Fossato resembled an English April, the sunshine was warm, but the wind
was apt to be chilly, and at night-time it was quite cold, though never
frosty. The central heating apparatus was kept going in the school, and
the girls, though they might run about without coats in the sunshine,
were always required to have a warm jersey at hand, for the wind at this
season could be treacherous, and those unused to the climate, deceived
by its brightness and wealth of flowers, were very liable to catch
chills and to be laid up with feverish colds as the result of their own
imprudence. Sometimes indeed a bitter sirocco wind would blow, and bring
torrents of rain to turn the blue sea and sky to a leaden gray and to
blot out the view of Naples and Vesuvius, but it seldom lasted more than
a few days, and in a land of drought was welcomed to refresh the gardens
and to fill the cisterns and water-tanks.

It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that the Villa Camellia was
of necessity run somewhat on convent lines. In Italy young girls do not
walk about unchaperoned as in England and America, but are always very
closely escorted by older people, and it was advisable to keep to the
customs of the country. The pupils obtained most of their exercise
inside their own garden. On Sundays they paraded to the British church,
but otherwise they did not very often go into Fossato. Once a week, if
the weather were fine, a limited number were taken for an expedition,
but Irene had been at school for some weeks before this good fortune
fell to her lot. One lucky Wednesday, however, she found her name and
Lorna's written on the list of "exeats" on the notice-board, and flew to
announce the glad tidings to her chum.

"T