their annual festival in the Cascine. She had
a plain white dress of some far from costly
material, with a simple broad hem at the bottom
—a skirt I believe I should say, for I mean
only to speak of that part of it which robed
her from the waist downwards. It was simple
and cheap; but it was made of modest amplitude,
and was irreproachably washed, starched,
and ironed. Her bust to the waist was dressed
in a black silk jacket, open in front so as to
show a bit of worked muslin of the form of an
inverted pyramid, extending downward to within
an inch of the sash at the waist. This bodice
also was quite plain. But it sat to perfection
on the rich contours of her figure. Large
heavy bands of dark brown wavy hair were
skilfully arranged on either side of her face,
and were surmounted by one of those coquettish
dark brown hats which are assuredly the most
becoming head-gear that fashion has yet invented
for the young and pretty; though many of those
who are both are silly enough to let themselves
be cheated out of the use of it by the stupid
declaration of those who are neither, that it is
"vulgar," only because the simplicity and easy
cost of it place it within the reach of many.

And now how can I give an idea of the face
that was beneath the hat, and between the bands
of hair? It was a face of the veritable Florentine
type, with smaller features, more delicately
chiselled, more expressive of intelligence, more
mobile, than Roman female beauty. There was
none of the massive dignity and harmonious
repose of the Roman type of loveliness. A much
larger portion of the charm of the Tuscan girl
depended on the soul within, expressing its
meanings through the large well-opened clear
grey eyes, and in the constant play of the lines
of the mouth. Altogether, there was less of purely
animal perfection. The type of countenance was
the product of a race that had passed through
many generations of a higher civilisation than
modern Rome has achieved. The delicately
formed rounded little chin, with its dimple in the
middle, was somewhat prominent. The mouth
beautifully shaped, and capable of an infinity of
varying expression. The lips might perhaps have
been called too thin, and might have been held to
indicate that form would be considered more
important than colour. The nose small, thin, and
straight, but the least in the world retroussée.
The great grey eyes were exceptional in a model
Florentine head, and seemed to indicate that a rill
of northern blood had in some antecedent generation
been mingled with that of Laura Vanni's
Tuscan forefathers. The eyebrows above these
remarkable eyes were straight and strongly
marked, and the brow was slightly projecting. The
forehead, of very fair height, was rounded rather
than straight, and indicated an organisation in
which the perceptive faculties were more strongly
developed than the purely intellectual ones.

Three male companions were escorting pretty
Laura to the Cascine. Of these, two seniors
walked together in front. One was old Laudadio
Vanni, and the other his intimate friend and
gossip, and Laura's godfather, the Cavaliere
Niccolo Sestini, who, having as a clerk in some
one of the innumerable public offices spent his
life till sixty years of age in doing as nearly as
possible nothing, was now in the enjoyment of a
pension of some eightpence a day, and of the
felicity of having nothing whatever to do from
morning till night. He had possessed this
happiness for the last ten years, and still deemed
his lot a most enviable one. He was a bachelor,
and his friend Vanni a widower of many years'
standing. In appearance the two old men were
singularly contrasted. The cavaliere was a short,
fat, roundabout little man, with a head shaped
like the large end of an egg, and a skull as bald
as an egg-shell; rosy fat cheeks, from which every
vestige of whisker, beard, or moustache, was
scrupulously shaven; and a face utterly void of
any expression save that of profound contentment
and placidity.

The old jeweller, Laudadio Vanni, was a very
much more remarkable-looking man. His
unusually tall and strangely-slender figure was
alone sufficient to attract attention; but the
impression produced by it was exceedingly enhanced
by an abundance of long straggling locks of
silvery whiteness, which were blown about by the
breeze as he walked, carrying his hat in his hand,
and by an ample and flowing beard of the same
hue. But the singular expression of his face was
needed to complete the portrait, which the
memory of those who saw him rarely failed to
retain. It was long, narrow, and emaciated as
his body. The forehead was higher and straighter
than his daughter's, but much narrower, and
remarkably pinched about the temples. But the eye
was what gave the whole face its peculiar and
striking expression. It was the same large clear
grey eye that Laura had, scarcely dimmed
by old Laudadio's eight-and-seventy years, but
with a strange wildness and eagerness of expression
that seemed to impart something almost
"uncanny" to the physiognomy. The head
might have been taken as a model for that of
some rapt Ossianic bard, had it not been that
there was a certain meanness about the lines of
the mouth and in the expression of the narrow
retiring forehead that would have been inconsistent
with the idea. The old man stooped a
little, not at the shoulders, but at the hips; and
the attitude thus given to his body, joined to the
slight protrusion of the chin, caused by the
habitual rectification of the stoop, gave an air of
restless anxiety to the figure which was very
striking.

The fourth member of the party was, like old
Vanni, a goldsmith and jeweller; but, though he
had reached his five-and-thirtieth year, he was not
yet master of a shop and business of his own. A
better workman at his art than Carlo Bardi
could not be found in Florence, and that is
saying a great deal. Nor could there have been
found a more thrifty man, which, as these are
especially Florentine virtues, is saying much