"I have not seen a drunken man in Italy," said Gray; "it's perfectly wonderful. Think of the whiskey and whiskey-brawls at home! Think of the gin and horrible wife-beating in England!"

"I don't know why I should think of them. They're not pleasant subjects."

"The one carrying the red-capped boy is your waitress again," said Gray, as the women, their devotions over, drew nearer on their way to the bridge. "What is she doing down here?"

"It's her home; she is a Tre Ponti girl—was born here; and her family live here still. She herself much prefers the town to the country; she shares to the full the ideas which Browning expressed in 'Up in a Villa, Down in the City.'"

Modesta had now discovered them, and paused, while the women who were with her gave such a general greeting to "lordships" that it seemed to Gray that he beheld several yards of white teeth, surmounted by rows of dark eyes whose depths held a sweetness which no Northern orbs could ever contain.

"I accompany for a short distance my friend Paola," explained the waitress, "Paola being tired, and having already the baby to carry. This, the one I have, is her Angelo—as the master can perceive for himself, an angel indeed—though his little ankles are not strong. But—what would they have? That requires patience; it will improve. The masters would like without doubt to see also the baby? A miracle of beauty!" And giving the older child to one of her companions, she took the swaddled infant from its mother, and brought it to Dennison and his friend, a smile of pure enthusiasm irradiating her face. "His cheeks—do the masters behold them? And his eyes like stars? Lordships can note the quality of his arms."

Gray lightly pinched the dimpled roll of fat extended towards him. "Oui, oui. Grandeena!" he said, emphatically.

"What frank, pleasant faces they all have!" said Gray.

"Very frank. They never changed a muscle when, as a token of your admiration of the baby, you told them that it was hailing."

"Hailing? What are you talking about? I said the baby's arm was big."

"Grandina happens to mean 'it is hailing'; that's all."

"It couldn't; it wouldn't be such a fool! Are we going to stay here all night? It's awfully dusty."

For the open space outside of the gate was now filled with loungers, and the café of Garibaldi was crowded both inside and out; the two Americans left their bench and strolled down the hill. When they reached the bridge they stopped to watch the water. As they did so they heard music; down the gorge beside the stream came a party of girls, two and two, with linked arms; they were singing all together something slow and sweet, and as they passed under the bridge each gave a glance upward towards the two gentlemen who were leaning over the parapet to look at them.

"What are they singing?" asked Gray.

"A hymn to the Virgin, with an endless number of verses; stay here a month, and you'll hear it so often that you'll sing it in your sleep."

"She isn't; she is a Swede. She was brought here last summer by a queer old English woman, who has lived for ten years, off and on, in that villa just above the second bridge; she had a fancy for servants who could not speak a word of English, and she picked up this girl in Stockholm during one of her journeys—for when she wasn't in Tuscany, she was trotting all over the globe. She died, at the last, suddenly; it was two months ago, and, so far, her heirs in England, distant cousins, I believe, have refused to do anything for this stranded maid. The Swedish consul, however, has taken it up, and I hear that there is prospect of a remittance some time or other—enough to pay her expenses back to Stockholm. Fortunately for herself, she had learned to speak Italian. And she had made friends in Tre Ponti; she is staying with these friends now, and turning her hand meanwhile to anything that offers in order to support herself until the money comes. Let's go home and have some tea. Dinner will be very late this evening on account of the festa; no hope of its being on the table before nine o'clock."

"Just a minute more," said Gray.

They were no longer a small company; a dozen women had joined them, and six or eight youths followed behind. Modesta accompanied the girls, having finished her duties as escort to Paola and her children.

"Here is your waitress coming back," said Gray. "How handsome she looks!"

"Modesta is the only one who appears to remember that it is a hymn," remarked Gray.

"Hymn? It's a him of another kind. She probably doesn't know that she is singing at all; much less what. And she doesn't even see those racing tomboys. She only knows one thing, sees one thing, and that is her Goro."

"Goro?"

"Yes; the young fellow she is going to marry. He is just behind her—there at her elbow. You've seen him in our vineyard half a dozen times."

"He appeared dull enough there! To-day he looks very smart. However, he is much too young for her—hardly more than a boy."

"What was she saying?" asked Gray, when at last the piercing voice stopped.

"You wish a sample? She said, 'Brute, thou! Beast, thou! Thou it is who hast done it, pig of a Vanna! For thou puttest me in a fury so that I said evil words. And now what is the use of my Lent? Didn't I drop with fasting? Wasn't I faint? Didn't I do every one of my devotions? And now all lost through thee. Serpent! and frog!'"

Modesta had paid no more attention to this raving outburst than she had paid to the race which had preceded it; she had stopped singing when the others stopped, but her eyes still gazed dreamily at the sky. After a moment or two she turned so that her glance could take in Goro, and then she stood tranquilly waiting, her face serene, content.

"The master, thine," she whispered. "Thy two lordships."

The waitress now came back to actual life. She waited a moment, until the others had passed on. "It is Goro," she said, presenting him. "The masters already know him well."

"Not in his festival clothes," answered Dennison. "He is nothing," he added, banteringly; "not half good enough! I wouldn't have him, Modesta, if I were you."

When Dennison said "He is nothing," Goro answered, "È vero" (It is true), and laughed lightly. He was a tall, strong youth, with curling hair and a joyous smile.

"Eh—he wishes me so much good!" replied Modesta, fondly.

The next morning Gray took another sunrise walk; he had but five days more to spend in Tuscany, and he wished to make every hour tell. When he came back the waitress was in the court, occupied in tying a long cord to Hannibal's collar; beside her were two towels and a cake of soap.

"It is Annibale, who goes now for his bath," she explained; "Peppino takes him. A bath is excellent for Annibale."

Peppino now came from the kitchen, ready for the expedition. With a salute to their visitor, he took the end of the cord in his hand, and turned down the path which leads to the fields below.

"I'll go too," said Gray. "Ego," he added, tapping his breast violently, to show that he meant himself.

The valley fields belonging to Casa Colombina are six in number; five are for grain and one for vegetables, and all are bordered by rows of fruit-trees, with grape-vines trained to swing from trunk to trunk. These fields are watered by artificial rivulets, which are fed from the pond. And the pond is in reality a reservoir for the water of a spring above. They passed the spring first. It is covered by a roof which extends some distance beyond it, supported by pillars of brick; the ground beneath is paved with flag-stones, and here were assembled a collection of the large tubs, of red earthen-ware, in shape and hue like mammoth flower-pots, which the Tuscan peasants use for washing clothes. Above the spring, fastened to one of the pillars, was a china image of St. Agnes, and beneath the image there was a hanging lamp with one wick, its tiny flame like a pale yellow point in the brilliant morning light.

"Modesta?" said Gray, indicating the lamp as they passed.

The cook nodded affirmatively.

"She is foolishly superstitious," he said. "But women—" A shrug completed the sentence.

The cook comprehended. "It is true. She spoils him with her indulgence; it is a melancholy weakness in her character," he replied, as with his disengaged hand he took his red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, which was heavily bedewed with drops of perspiration, owing to his exertions at the pond.

In spite of her mirth, Gray had noticed that the eyes of the waitress were reddened, as though she had been shedding tears.

At breakfast Dennison also noticed this. "Anything the matter?" he said.

"Ah, nothing, nothing," replied Modesta, waving her hand contemptuously. "It is only that I am of so great a carelessness—I have shame about it. Will they figure it to themselves that I actually took off the cover of the large pepper-jar and emptied the contents into a bowl, my face held over it meanwhile and a breeze blowing through the pantry! That was acting like a fool; the pepper naturally flew into my eyes. But enough; it will pass."

After breakfast Dennison went down to Tre Ponti on business connected with his olive-grove. But he returned very soon, and, entering the library, rang the bell sharply.

"What's up?" said Gray, who was writing letters by the window.

"He was down at the pond washing the dog; I was with him."

"That explains it. Modesta, therefore, having the field to herself, absolutely refused to allow them to bring the poor creature in here; she let him go in a jolting wagon down to Tre Ponti, telling me nothing whatever about it. What makes it worse is that the man is a contadino who used to work for me; he worked for me, in fact, until he grew too old to work anywhere."

"Probably she has some reason for disliking him."

"On the contrary, she likes him; I happen to know it. And she has a very soft heart for old people, for all kinds of infirmity and suffering. She will fly down to see him upon the very first opportunity; she will rob herself to take him the best food and wine, and everything else she can think of; she will take the very pillows from her bed! She had cried her eyes out over him, that was evident. With her yarn about the pepper!"

"But why in the world, then—"

"Simply because her idea is never to speak of unpleasant subjects to her superiors if she can possibly avoid it; if forced to tell something of the truth, she envelops it in roundabout, optimistic phrases that would deceive even Solomon! But you'll hear for yourself. I'll translate what she says afterwards."

Modesta now appeared in answer to the ring.

"Almost well, as lordship can behold. It was too much carelessness—mine—with that pepper!"

"Pepper, indeed; I feel peppery myself," replied Dennison. "Why didn't you tell me about the man who was injured here this morning?"

"Eh—lordship has heard? It was a slight accident."

"His leg and his arm were broken, and you know it. Also his head was cut."

"Most surely that is an error. It was a sprain, a wrench; nothing more."

"But I have seen him myself. And it was old Niccolo."

"Lordship has seen him? It is possible that it was Niccolo; I did not observe closely."

"You should have come to my door and wakened me, instead of taking it upon yourself to give orders," said Dennison.

"Oh!" exclaimed the waitress, with a vivid expression of repugnance in her eyes. "Waken lordship to tell him of a trouble—a misfortune like that? What, then, would become of his repose—his tranquillity?"

"You need not concern yourself about my tranquillity," answered Dennison. But he gave it up. "You may go," he said. "Stay a minute," he added; "I have provided a nurse for Niccolo, and a doctor, and he is to be paid so much a day for the best food and wine; he will therefore require nothing from you."

"How about the pepper?" inquired Dennison, as she left the room.

But the waitress was not disturbed by the detection of her falsehood.

"The whole thing seems to her only the most ordinary duty to me," said Dennison, after she had gone. "And if I had not happened to see Niccolo with my own eyes, she would have stuck to her lie to the judgment-day. Personally it was dreadful to her to send him away; she would have liked nothing better than to have him here, in one of those cool rooms off the court, where she could coddle him to her heart's content."

"Do you know, then, I think what she did was in one way charming," said Gray. "All these Italian peasants seem to me to have the most wonderful civility; their manners are always agreeable; they are almost polished. Think of the manners of—"

"I refuse to think of anything; the discoveries made by you new-comers are only exceeded by your conceit. For a thorough knowledge of the Italian character give me the man who has spent, in all, six weeks in Italy?"

"There certainly is a stairway," persisted Gray.

"And then we could get something in the way of a dinner at a little summer hotel, which is already open for the season. There is a moon for the drive back, and we could stop and have a look at the powwow before coming home—as you're so athirst for everything Tuscan."

"Excellent. Jar!" said Gray.

"Jar? What jar?"

"Jar. Jarr, then, since you say I always cut my r's. You ought to know Italian when you hear it. Jar is what they all say to me when they mean yes."

"You ridiculous object, 'già' is the word."

"That's exactly what I said: jar."

It was three o'clock when they started, and a beautiful May afternoon. A pair of horses and the rattling phaeton had been sent to Casa Colombina from Tre Ponti. Modesta had already departed.

"The celebration begins early," said Gray, as he saw her start.

"She isn't going there now," answered Dennison. "She will go first to the house of Goro's mother, about half a mile from here; there she will sit braiding straw and gossiping with the old woman in a dark, cellar-like room, until the beloved object comes home and is ready to accompany her. I dare say she is taking him something with which to make himself smart for the occasion—a new necktie or a silk handkerchief."

"What is it?" said Gray, listening. "I'm sure I know it."

"'Com' è gentil'; that is, 'O summer night.' Peppino is very sentimental in his musical tastes."

"He doesn't go to the party, then?"

"He despises parties. He goes in for bombs."

Filippo, a sinewy little man who had been acting as harlequin himself (for the men took turns), consulted with his wife. They had no more candles, and no more saucers and wicks; but they could make a blaze of brushwood on the hearth, if the company would not mind the additional heat? The wife, a laughing ample matron who still showed a handsome face above her rotund person, opened a door into an out-building, and, after some rummaging, produced three fagots of small, dry twigs; one of these she placed over the coals, and in a minute or two a blaze leaped up the wide chimney, lighting the room brilliantly. The game now went on with redoubled vigor and glee, and the gazers without could see all the faces of the circle distinctly.

"There is Modesta by the table," whispered Gray. "How she does laugh! It doesn't seem natural."

"Oh yes, it is. That is the way they laugh sometimes; they can go on for hours like children."

"Isn't that the Swedish girl with one of the harlequins? How light-colored she looks in that tanned, black-haired crowd! She is rather pretty; instead of letting her go back to Stockholm, one of these Italian youths had better marry her."

"She probably holds herself above them," answered Dennison, in the same low tone. "But, in any case, Tuscan peasants are extremely slow to marry a person who is not a Tuscan. They call even Romans foreigners; generally, too, they call them brutes! Well, we've been here twenty minutes: had enough?"

At this instant a woman detached herself from the distant groups of revellers and rushed towards the grove. And as she came on her figure was such a vision of swiftness of motion and of intensity of purpose that Gray unconsciously held his breath as he watched her. The plateau was broad; she was a full minute in crossing it. As she drew near the grove she lifted her head a little, and the moonlight, which had been behind her, fell across her forehead; then he saw that it was Modesta.

It was during this instant that Modesta reached her; coming down the slope with all the gathered impetus of her tremendous speed, she swooped upon the girl, bore her to the ground, struck her across the cheek, and then, holding her down with one hand, she fumbled in her own pocket with the other.

Dennison meanwhile, as soon as he had recognized his waitress at the top of the descent (he had not distinguished who it was before, his eyesight not being so keen as Gray's), had left his tree, and, darting across the intervening space, he now caught her arm tightly at the elbow, while her hand was still in her pocket. Gray hurried to his aid, and seized her other wrist, dragging her fingers away from the girl on the ground; thus holding her between them, they pulled her to her feet. As they did so her right hand came out of her pocket. It held a murderous-looking knife.

"You devil," said Dennison, in Italian, "drop that knife!"

"Drop the knife, or you shall go to prison," said Dennison, sternly, his hands on her shoulder like a vise.

Her fingers did not move.

"Listen. If you don't drop it, I swear to you I'll send Goro to America by the next Leghorn steamer, with five hundred lire in his pocket."

The knife dropped.

"Pick it up," said Dennison to Gray, in English. "Now see if you can lift that girl and carry her down the hill. Get her across the field somehow to that stone wall where we climbed over; wait there for me—unless she should come to on the way, in which case perhaps she will be able to climb over the wall herself. If she does, wait there with her by the phaeton. I sha'n't be long. But I must take this she-wolf back to the house first."

Gray had bent down; he lifted the inert body at their feet, raising it a little, and as he did so the head fell back, and the moonlight, shining on the hair and temples, showed that it was the Swede. Modesta, as she too saw the face, made a spring at it. But Dennison jerked her back. Then, with a snarling sound in her throat, she twisted her head round, and bit savagely at his hand where it held her shoulder.

Gray, having got the Swede off the ground, put his left arm under her back at the shoulders, and his right under her knees, and, lifting her in this position, he carried her down the hill with as much speed as was possible. This was not great, because the ground was uneven, and as he could not see where to place his steps, he was obliged to feel his way with his feet as he advanced—to shuffle along cautiously. In time, however, he reached the bottom of the hill. Then slowly he began to cross the field. This, too, was difficult, owing to the soft, crumbling earth of the freshly ploughed furrows. But here at last the girl opened her eyes.

"Can you stand?" asked Gray, breathlessly. Then he thought, with irritation, "None of them can speak anything!"

But the Swede now made of her own accord the motion of trying to get to her feet, and gladly enough he let her slip down and stand on the ground, as his arms were aching. He still supported her, however, lest she should fall.

They reached the wall, and climbed over into the road outside, the Swede needing no help, but quicker in her movements than he was. In the road he tried to stop her, but she pulled herself from him. Still holding her, he showed her the horses tied in the shadow of the hedge. This she comprehended. She waited, therefore; but she kept herself several yards away from him, so that he should not stop her in case she should again wish to flee. She was a slender young creature, and she stood there much as a bird poises itself on a twig; not resting, not bearing its full weight, but perched provisionally, as it were—ready to fly away again in an instant.

Gray, who had now recovered his composure, tried to soothe her. With his most encouraging inflections he repeated: "All safe now. All-ll safe! Stay right here with me."

She paid not the least attention to him. Her eyes continued their strained watch of the lower trees of the grove. At length a man's figure emerged from these trees, and the girl gave a muffled scream. But Gray had caught hold of her arm; pointing to the horses and then to Dennison, he said, gesticulating energetically: "Horses are his. Dennison's. My friend. Your friend. (Oh, what is 'friend?') Amicus! Don't you see he's alone? Nobody with him? Solo? Sola?"

And the girl could indeed see for herself that the person approaching was alone. She had understood the fact that the horses belonged to this person, and her hope was in the horses; they could take her away—away from here!

"What was it all about, anyhow?"

"Didn't you comprehend? That harlequin (I'll mention no names, and then she won't be startled) was no less a person than the lover of your Madonna beauty—the youth she expects to marry. During the game he was flirting, or trying to flirt after his fashion, with our present companion. This was too much for the older woman. Hence the knife."

"Which I have in my pocket, by-the-bye."

"Don't take it out now; you can throw it away after we have disposed of our Scandinavian. I suppose she has never before seen such a thing as a brandished weapon of that sort. It's a knife used by the peasants about here to cut hides with; your Madonna probably took it from among Filippo's tools somehow while the festivities were going on. She must have been jealous even then."

"Very likely," answered Dennison. "Tchk, tchk," he added to the horses.

"I hope she is safely locked up by this time."

"Locked up! She is probably dancing with her harlequin."

"You don't mean to say that you let her go?"

"Quite so. She is all right now; she has come back to her senses. I had six words with the youth, however; he'll treat her better—for the present, at least; I have frightened him."

"What did you mean when you said you'd send him away?"

"That was what brought her round. He has had a hankering for a long time to emigrate to—to the land of the free; he would go in a minute if his passage were paid and he had a hundred dollars in his pocket—go and never think of her again; she knows this. But the land of the free doesn't want him—he is incorrigibly lazy; and his departure would end her as far as I am concerned—make her perfectly useless."

"Good heavens! you're not going to take that murderess back?"

"I can't take her back without sending her away first. And that I haven't done," answered Dennison.

"But won't she be arrested, in any case? Every one will know that she attacked this girl, and that the girl has fled."

"Brrrr!" said Gray, uttering the sound that accompanies a shudder.

The Swede recognized the meaning of this; she looked at him quickly with parted lips and her hand extended. She was ready to spring from the phaeton.

"Do be quiet!" said Dennison. Then he spoke to the girl in Italian, quieting her dread.

They reached the station in safety, and soon after sunrise the Northerner, her breath still hurried, her hands cold, was placed in the care of the official who had charge of the Florence train. Dennison gave her his white silk handkerchief to tie over her uncovered head. The daylight had revealed the discolored lines of the bruise on her cheek produced by Modesta's blow. "Poor thing!" said Gray, as the train started on its way, and they had a last glimpse of her frightened eyes at the window.

"Yes. But she will get over it in time—she is strong and healthy. I have telegraphed to the consul at Florence to meet her, and take every care of her; he is to give her money from me, and then he is to send her to Stockholm, comfortably, in the charge of a suitable person. When she arrives there she will find a tidy little sum to her credit at a banker's."

"You're paying well for her scare."

"I'm paying well for my comfort."

As the Tower of the Dove came into sight on its hill, Gray said: "She won't be there, will she—I mean at the house?"

"Oh yes."

"What will she do when she sees us?"

"She will bring in the breakfast just as she brings it every morning, and Hannibal and the cats will follow behind. Perhaps she will talk rather more than usual; if she does, it will be on the most agreeable topics, and her smile (which you admire so much) will be sweeter than ever; her hair will be braided to perfection, and, what is more important, her work will be done to perfection. We shall pretend, both of us, she and I, that we don't see the mark of the bite on my hand. Shall I go on? In a week or two, probably, she will marry her Goro, and then he will be so constantly under my feet that I shall end by installing him as my gardener for life. He will do no work of importance; but, owing to his presence, I shall continue to enjoy the services of a waitress whom you yourself have described as a regular marvel."

ON the shores of Lake Leman there are many villas. For several centuries the vine-clad banks have been a favorite resting-place for visitors from many nations. English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Russians are found in the circle of strangers whose gardens fringe the lake northward from Geneva, eastward from Lausanne, and southward from Vevey, Clarens, and Montreux. Not long ago an American joined this circle. The American was a lady named Winthrop.

Mrs. Winthrop had taken possession of the villa in May, and it was now late in August; Lake Leman therefore had enjoyed her society for three long months. Through all this time, in the old lake's estimation, and notwithstanding the English, French, Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Russians, many of them titled, who were also upon its banks, the American lady remained an interesting presence. And not in the opinion of the old lake only, but in that also of other observers, less fluid and impersonal. Mrs. Winthrop was much admired. Miolans had entertained numerous guests during the summer; to-day, however, it held only the bona fide members of the family—namely, Mrs. Winthrop, her cousin Sylvia, and Mr. H. Walpole, Miss Sylvia's cousin. Mr. H. Walpole was always called "Cousin Walpole" by Sylvia, who took comfort in the name, her own (a grief to her) being neither more nor less than Pitcher. "Sylvia Pitcher" was not impressive, but "H. Walpole" could shine for two. If people supposed that H. stood for Horace, why, that was their own affair.

"Sylvia will be delighted," said Mrs. Winthrop, giving her hand in courteous welcome. "We have been hoping that we should see you, Mr. Ford, before the summer was over."

They stood a few moments, and then went up the plane-tree avenue towards the house. Mrs. Winthrop spoke the usual phrases of the opening of an acquaintance with grace and ease; her companion made the usual replies. He was quite as much at his ease as she was, but he did not especially cultivate grace. Sylvia, enjoying her conversation with Cousin Walpole, sat just within the hall door; she was taken quite by surprise. "Oh, John, how you startled me! I thought you were in Norway. But how very glad I am to see you, my dear, dear boy!" She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, with a moisture in her soft, faded, but still pretty eyes.

Mrs. Winthrop remained outside; there were garden chairs in the small porch, and she seated herself in one of them. She smiled a little when she heard Sylvia greet this mature specimen of manhood as a "dear, dear boy."

Cousin Walpole now came forward. "You are welcome, sir," he said, in his slender little voice. Then bethinking him of his French, he added, with dignity, "Welcome to Miaw-lins—Miaw-lins-lay-Tower."

Ford, who had been gazing at the rug, looked up; he caught Mrs. Winthrop's glance, and the gleam of merriment in it. "Yes, my profile is like my mother's, and therefore good," he answered, gravely. "It is a pity that my full face contradicts it. However, I live in profile as much as possible; I present myself edgewise."

"What do you mean, dear?" said Sylvia.

"I am like the new moon," he answered; "I show but a rim. All the rest I keep dark."

After a while all went down to the outlook to see the after-glow on Mont Blanc. Mrs. Winthrop led the way with Cousin Walpole, whose high, bell-crowned straw hat had a dignity which no modern head-covering could hope to rival.

Sylvia followed, with her nephew. "You must come and stay with us, John," she said. "Katharine has so much company that you will find it entertaining, and even at times instructive. I am sure I have found it so; and I am, you know, your senior. We are alone to-day; but it is for the first time. Generally the house is full."

"But I do not like a full house," said Ford, smiling down upon the upturned face of the little "senior" by his side.

"You will like this one. It is not a commonplace society—by no means commonplace. The hours, too, are easy; breakfast, for instance, from nine to eleven—as you please. As to the quality of the—of the bodily support, it is sufficient to say that Marches is house-keeper. You remember Marches?"

"Perfectly. Her tarts no one could forget."

"Katharine is indebted to me for Marches," continued Sylvia. "I relinquished her to Katharine upon the occasion of her marriage, ten years ago; for she was totally inexperienced, you know—only seventeen."

"Then she is now twenty-seven."

"I should not have mentioned that," said Miss Pitcher, instinctively. "It was an inadvertence. Could you oblige me by forgetting it?"

"With the greatest ease. She is, then, sensitive about her age?"

"She is a fine-looking woman."

"Oh, John, that is what they always say of women who weigh two hundred! And Katharine is very slender."

Ford laughed. "I supposed the fact that Mrs. Winthrop was handsome went without the saying."

"It goes," said Sylvia, impressively, "but not without the saying; I assure you, by no means without the saying. It has been said this summer many times."

"And she does not find it fatiguing?"

The little aunt looked at her nephew. "You do not like her," she said, with a fine air of penetration, touching his coat-sleeve lightly with one finger. "I see that you do not like her."

"My dear aunt! I do not know her in the least."

"Well, how does she impress you, then, not knowing her?" said Miss Pitcher, folding her arms under her little pink shawl with an impartial air.

He glanced at the figure in front. "How she impresses me?" he said. "She impresses me as a very attractive, but very complete, woman of the world."

A flood of remonstrance rose to Sylvia's lips; but she was obliged to repress it, because Mrs. Winthrop had paused, and was waiting for them.

"But you have seen it all before," said Mrs. Winthrop. "To you it is not something from fairy-land, hardly to be believed, as it is to me. Do you know, sometimes, when waking in the early dawn, before the prosaic little details of the day have risen in my mind, I ask myself, with a sort of doubt in the reality of it all, if this is Katharine Winthrop living on the shores of Lake Leman—herself really, and not her imagination only, her longing dream." It is very well uttered, with a touch of enthusiasm which carried it along, and which was in itself a confidence.

"Yes—ah—quite so. Yet you hardly look like a person who would think that sort of thing under those circumstances," said Ford, watching a bark, with the picturesque lateen-sails of Lake Leman, cross his green-framed picture from east to west.

Mrs. Winthrop let the hand with which she had made her little gesture drop. She stood looking at him. But he did not add anything to his remark, or turn his glance from the lateen-sails.

"What sort of a person, then, do I look like?" she said.

He turned. She was smiling; he smiled also. "I was alluding merely to the time you named. As it happened, my aunt had mentioned to me by chance your breakfast hours."

"That was not all, I think."

"You are very good to be interested."

"I have so little imagination, Mrs. Winthrop, that I cannot invent the proper charming interpretation as I ought. As to bald truth, of course you cannot expect me to present you with that during a first visit of ceremony."

"The first visit will, I hope, be a long one; you must come and stay with us. As to ceremony, if this is your idea of it—"

"—What must I be when unceremonious! I suppose you are thinking," said Ford, laughing. "On the whole, I had better make no attempts. The owl, in his own character, is esteemed an honest bird; but let him not try to be a nightingale."

"Come as owl, nightingale, or what you please, so long as you come. When you do, I shall ask you again what you meant."

"If you are going to hold it over me, perhaps I had better tell you now."

"Much better."

"I only meant, then, that Mrs. Winthrop did not strike me as at all the sort of person who would allow anything prosaic to interfere with her poetical, heartfelt enthusiasms."

She laughed gayly. "You are delightful. You have such a heavy apparatus for fibbing that it becomes fairly stately. You do not believe I have any enthusiasms at all," she added. Her eyes were dark blue, with long lashes; they were very fine eyes.

"I will believe whatever you please," said John Ford.

"Very well. Believe what I tell you."

"You include only what you tell in words?"

"On the contrary, it is excess of timidity. It makes me desperate and crude."

They had walked on, and now came up with the others. "Does he amuse you?" said Sylvia, in a low tone, as Cousin Walpole in his turn walked onward with the new-comer. "I heard you laughing."

"Yes; but he is not at all what you said. He is so shy and ill at ease that it is almost painful."

"Dear me!" said the aunt, with concern. "The best thing, then, will be for him to come and stay with us. You have so much company that it will be good for him; his shyness will wear off."

"I have invited him, but I doubt his coming," said the lady of the manor.

The outlook was a little terrace built out over the water. Mrs. Winthrop seated herself and took off her garden-hat (Mrs. Winthrop had a very graceful head, and thick, soft, brown hair). "Not so close, Gibbon," she said, as the shaggy dog laid himself down beside her.

"You call your dog Gibbon?" said Ford.

"Yes; he came from Lausanne, where Gibbon lived; and I think he looks just like him. But pray put on your hat, Mr. Ford. A man in the open air, deprived of his hat, is always a wretched object, and always takes cold."

"I may be wretched, but I do not take cold," replied Ford, letting his hat lie.

"John does look very strong," said Sylvia, with pride.

"Surely, Cousin Walpole, there is nothing in common between John and a gladiator!"

"Your pardon, Cousin Sylvia. I was speaking generally. My conversation, sir," said the bachelor, turning to Ford, "is apt to be general."

"No one likes personalities, I suppose," replied Ford, watching the last hues of the sunset.

"On the contrary, I am devoted to them," said Mrs. Winthrop.

"Oh no, Katharine; you malign yourself," said Sylvia. "You must not believe all she says, John."

"Mr. Ford has just promised to do that very thing," remarked Mrs. Winthrop.

"Dear me!" said Sylvia. Her tone of dismay was so sincere that they all laughed. "You know, dear, you have so much imagination," she said, apologetically, to her cousin.

"Mr. Ford has not," replied the younger lady; "so the exercise will do him no harm."

"This lake, sir," said Cousin Walpole, "is remarkable for the number of persons distinguished in literature who have at various times resided upon its banks. I may mention, cursorily, Voltaire, Sismondi, Gibbon, Rousseau, Sir Humphry Davy, D'Aubigné, Calvin, Grimm, Benjamin Constant, Schlegel, Châteaubriand, Byron, Shelley, the elder Dumas, and in addition that most eloquent authoress and noble woman Madame de Staël."

"The banks must certainly be acquainted with a large amount of fine language," said Ford.

"And oh, how we have enjoyed Coppet, John! You remember Coppet?" said Miss Pitcher. "We have had, I assure you, days and conversations there which I, for one, can never forget. Do you remember, Katharine, that moment by the fish-pond, when, carried away by the influences of the spot, Mr. Percival exclaimed, and with such deep feeling, 'Etonnante femme!'"

"Meaning Mrs. Winthrop?" said Ford.

"No, John, no; meaning Madame de Staël," replied the little aunt.

"I thought you had so much company," he said one afternoon to Sylvia, when they happened to be alone. "I have been coming and going now for ten days, and have seen no one."

"These ten days were reserved for the Storms," replied Miss Pitcher. "But old Mrs. Storm fell ill at Baden-Baden, and what could they do?"

"Take care of her, I should say."

"Gilbert Storm was poignantly disappointed. He is, I think, on the whole, the best among Katharine's outside admirers."

"Then there are inside ones?"

"Several. You know Mr. Winthrop was thirty-five years older than Katharine. It was hardly to be expected, therefore, that she should love him—I mean in the true way."

"Whatever she might have done in the false."

"You are too cynical, my dear boy. There was nothing false about it; Katharine was simply a child. He was very fond of her, I assure you. And died most happily."

"For all concerned."

Sylvia shook her head. But Mrs. Winthrop's step was now heard in the hall; she came in with several letters in her hand. "Any news?" said Miss Pitcher.

"No," replied the younger lady. "Nothing ever happens any more."

"As Ronsard sang,

"That is true," she answered, soberly, almost sombrely.

That evening the moonlight on the lake was surpassingly lovely; there was not a ripple to break the sheen of the water, and the clear outline of Mont Blanc rose like silver against the dark black-blue of the sky. They all strolled down to the shore; Mrs. Winthrop went out with Ford in his skiff, "for ten minutes." Sylvia watched the little boat float up and down for twenty; then she returned to the house and read for forty more. When Sylvia was down-stairs she read the third canto of "Childe Harold"; in her own room she kept a private supply of the works of Miss Yonge. At ten Katharine entered. "Has John gone?" said the aunt, putting in her mark and closing the Byronic volume.

"Yes; he came to the door, but would not come in."

"I wish he would come and stay. He might as well; he is here every day."

"That is the very point; he also goes every day," replied Katharine.

She was leaning back in her chair, her eyes fixed upon the carpet. Sylvia was going to say something more, when suddenly a new idea came to her. It was a stirring idea; she did not often have such inspirations; she remained silent, investigating it. After a while, "When do you expect the Carrols?" she said.

"Not until October."

"She has put them off!" thought the little aunt. "She does not want any one here just at present." And she was so fluttered by the new possibilities rising round her like a cloud that she said good-night, and went up-stairs to think them over; she did not even read Miss Yonge.

The next day Ford did not come to Miolans until just before the dinner hour. Sylvia was disappointed by this tardiness, but cheered when Katharine came in; for Mrs. Winthrop wore one of her most becoming dresses. "She wishes to look her best," thought the aunt. But at this moment, in the twilight, a carriage came rapidly up the driveway and stopped at the door. "Why, it is Mr. Percival!" said Sylvia, catching a glimpse of the occupant.

"Yes; he has come to spend a few days," said Mrs. Winthrop, going into the hall to greet her new guest.

Down fell the aunt's cloud-castle; but at the same moment a more personal feeling took its place in the modest little middle-aged breast; Miss Pitcher deeply admired Mr. Percival.

"You know who it is, of course?" she whispered to her nephew when she had recovered her composure.

"You said Percival, didn't you?"

"Yes; but this is Lorimer Percival—Lorimer Percival, the poet."

Katharine now came back. Sylvia sat waiting, and turning her bracelets round on her wrists. Sylvia's bracelets turned easily; when she took a book from the top shelf of the bookcase they went to her shoulders.

It was decided that they would all go to Coppet the next day—"dear Coppet," as Sylvia called it. The expedition seemed to be partly sacred and partly sylvan; a pilgrimage-picnic. When Ford took leave, Mrs. Winthrop and Mr. Percival accompanied him as far as the water-steps. As his skiff glided out on the calm lake, he heard the gentleman's voice suggesting that they should stroll up and down awhile in the moonlight, and the lady's answer, "Yes; for ten minutes." He remembered that Mrs. Winthrop's ten minutes was sometimes an hour.

The next day they went to Coppet; Mrs. Winthrop and Mr. Percival in the carriage, Sylvia and Cousin Walpole in the phaeton, and Ford on horseback.

"It would be easy enough to die, I should say," replied Ford, dismounting.

"We must all die," remarked Cousin Walpole from the post where he was at work upon the horse. He tied that peaceful animal in such intricate and unexpected convolutions that it took Mrs. Winthrop's coachman, later, fully twenty minutes to comprehend and unravel them.

The Necker homestead is a plain, old-fashioned château, built round three sides of a square, a court-yard within. From the end of the south side a long, irregular wing of lower outbuildings stretches towards the road, ending in a thickened, huddled knot along its margin, as though the country highway had refused to allow aristocratic encroachments, and had pushed them all back with determined hands. Across the three high, pale-yellow façades of the main building the faded shutters were tightly closed. There was not a sign of life, save in a little square house at the end of the knot, where, as far as possible from the historic mansion he guarded, lived the old custodian, who strongly resembled the portraits of Benjamin Franklin.