At Mr.Wilder's elbow was the empty chair where Constance should have been--she who had insisted on six as a proper breakfast hour, and had grudgingly consented to postpone it till half-past out of deference to her sleepy-headed elders.

Her father had finished his egg and hers too, before she appeared, as nonchalant and smiling as if she were out the earliest of all.
"I think you might have waited!" was her greeting from the doorway.
She advanced to the table, saluted in military fashion, dropped a kiss on her father's bald spot, and possessed herself of the empty chair.

She too was clad in mountain-climbing costume, in so far as blouse and skirt and leather leggings went, but above her face there fluttered the fluffy white brim of a ruffled sun hat with a bunch of pink rosebuds set over one ear.
"I am sorry not to wear my own Alpine hat, Aunt Hazel; I look so deliciously German in it, but I simply can't afford to burn all the skin off my nose." "You can't make us believe that," said her father.

"The reason is, that Lieutenant di Ferara and Captain Coroloni are going with us today, and that this hat is more becoming than the other." "It's one reason," Constance agreed imperturbably, "but, as I say, I don't wish to burn the skin off my nose, because that is unbecoming too.
You are ungrateful, Dad," she added as she helped herself to honey with a liberal hand, "I invited them solely on your account because you like to hear them talk English.

Have the donkeys come ?" "The donkeys are at the back door nibbling the buds off the rose-bushes." "And the driver ?" "Is sitting on the kitchen doorstep drinking coffee and smiling over the top of his cup at Elizabetta.