and incomprehensible cause, British
eccentricity.

But when he rejoined her at the edge of
the broken fountain, another solution
presented itself to his mind. She had perhaps
seized this opportunity of speaking to
him out of sight and hearing of her
husband. Why not? It was impossible that
she could care a straw for that elderly
roué. Very natural to have married him;
he was so rich. Very natural also to
admire the Principe Cesare de' Barletti,
who was not eligible as a husband—as he
very well knew, and very candidly acknowledged
—but who was decidedly well-looking
and well-born, and would make a very
jewel of cavalieri serventi! There was but
one circumstance which caused Cesare to
hesitate before accepting this solution as
final. Veronica was an Englishwoman! And
really there was no judging Englishwomen
by the rules that hold good in estimating
the motives of the rest of the sex! And
whosoever should suppose that this reflection
implied in the Italian's mind any special
respect or admiration for Englishwomen,
would have been very much mistaken.

Veronica filled the goblet at the fountain.
The filling was a slow process, inasmuch
as the water dripped sparely through the
crevice before mentioned. Whilst the
drops of bright water were falling one by
one into the glass, Veronica kept her eyes
fixed on the latter, and her attention was
apparently absorbed in watching it.

"I pray you not to give yourself the
trouble to do that for me, signora," said
Barletti, bending forward, and offering to
take the goblet.

She waved him back with her hand, and
said, "I am watching to see how long it
takes to fill the glass. The drops fall so
regularly. Drip, drip, drip!"

He stood and looked at her. Now, at
all events, he was not taking her behaviour
as a matter of course.

As soon as the water touched the brim
of the glass, she relinquished it into
Barletti's hands and walked away slowly, as
though she had lost all interest in his
further proceedings. The prince drank a
long draught. He had no idea of not enjoying
its delicious coolness because he was
puzzled by "miladi." When he had done,
he walked after her, and overtook her.

"That was very fresh and pleasant," he
said. "A thousand thanks."

"Eh?"

"The water was so good. A thousand——"

"Oh!"

"Decidedly," thought Barletti, glancing
at the beautiful face beside him, "she is
English, thoroughly English! Who is to
make out such people?"

They found, on returning to the house,
that Sir John had gone in. He was in the
little salon, the servants said. Would il
Signor Principe join him there?

Il Signor Principe complied with the request.

Veronica lingered in the loggia and looked
out over the landscape. The sun had gone
down. The brief twilight was nearly over.
The trees stood out dark against the
background of pure sky, pale green near the
horizon, and deepening towards the zenith
to an intense dark blue. Not a leaf stirred
in the breathless calm. There was no moon,
but the heavens seemed to grow full of stars
as the daylight faded. They quivered and
shook with a liquid silvery lustre. And
below on the earth sparkled and danced to
and fro a thousand golden gleaming specks,
threading a mazy pattern just above the
crests of the ripening wheat. They were
fire-flies. When one of the bright insects
chanced to come near Veronica, she saw him
glow and pale with a palpitating intermittent
flame. And sometimes the whole field
full of them appeared to shine and fade
simultaneously, like the successive showers
of sparks from a smithy fire that respond
to the deep breath of the labouring bellows.

It was all as different as possible from
Daneshire. And yet Veronica began to
think of a certain summer night in Shipley
long ago, when she and Maud were children
together, and her mother had sat by an
open window telling them stories of her
Italian life. She remembered the black
old yew-tree, only a little blacker than the
cloudy, sultry, starless sky. She remembered
the sound of her mother's voice, and
Maud's dimly-seen little white face, and
the touch of Maud's soft, warm, little hand,
stroking her (Veronica's) hair in a sort of
rhythmic accompaniment to Mrs.
Levincourt's narrative. She did not think she
had been very happy in those days. She
pitied herself as she recalled some of them.
Nevertheless their remembrance caused a
vague yearning in her heart, and filled her
eyes with tears. A conviction, which she
tried to ignore, was in her mind. She did
not fight against it by self-deluding arguments;
she simply tried to avoid acknowledging
its existence, as we turn away our
eyes from a disagreeable object that we know
to be lying in wait for us on a path whereby