the bright side of thirty—- it happened that our
firm contracted to supply six first-class locomotives
to run on the new line, then in process of
construction, between Turin and Genoa. It was
the first Italian order we had taken. We had
had dealings with France, Holland, Belgium,
Germany; but never with Italy. The connexion, therefore,
was new and valuable—- all the more valuable
because our Transalpine neighbours had but
lately begun to lay down the iron roads, and
would be safe to need more of our good English
work as they went on. So the Birmingham
firm set themselves to the contract with a will,
lengthened our working hours, increased our
wages, took on fresh hands, and determined, if
energy and promptitude could do it, to place
themselves at the head of the Italian labour-
market, and stay there. They deserved and
achieved success. The six locomotives were
not only turned out to time, but were
shipped, despatched, and delivered with a
promptitude that fairly amazed our Piedmontese
consignee. I was not a little proud, you may
be sure, when I found myself appointed to
superintend the transport of the engines. Being
allowed a couple of assistants, I contrived that
Mat should be one of them; and thus we
enjoyed together the first great holiday of our lives.

It was a wonderful change for two Birmingham
operatives fresh from the Black Country.
The fairy city, with its crescent background of
Alps; the port crowded with strange shipping;
the marvellous blue sky and bluer sea; the
painted houses on the quays; the quaint cathedral,
faced with black and white marble; the
street of jewellers, like an Arabian Nights'
bazaar; the street of palaces, with its Moorish
court-yards, its fountains and orange-trees; the
women veiled like brides; the galley-slaves
chained two and two; the processions of priests
and friars; the everlasting clangour of bells;
the babble of a strange tongue; the singular
lightness and brightness of the climate—- made,
altogether, such a combination of wonders that
we wandered about, the first day, in a kind of
bewildered dream, like children at a fair.
Before that week was ended, being tempted by
the beauty of the place and the liberality of
the pay, we had agreed to take service with the
Turin and Genoa Railway Company, and to
turn our backs upon Birmingham for ever.

Then began a new life—- a life so active and
healthy, so steeped in fresh air and sunshine,
that we sometimes marvelled how we could
have endured the gloom of the Black Country.
We were constantly up and down the line: now
at Genoa, now at Turin, taking trial trips with
the locomotives, and placing our old experiences
at the service of our new employers. '

In the mean while we made Genoa our head-
quarters, and hired a couple of rooms over a
small shop in a by-street sloping down to the
quays. Such a busy little street so steep and
winding that no vehicles could pass through
it, and so narrow that the sky looked like a
mere strip of deep-blue ribbon overhead!
Every house in it, however, was a shop, where
the goods encroached on the footway, or were
piled about the door, or hung like tapestry
from the balconies; and all day long, from dawn
to dusk, an incessant stream of passers-by
poured up and down between the port and
the upper quarter of the city.

Our landlady was the widow of a silverworker,
and lived by the sale of filigree
ornaments, cheap jewellery, combs, fans, and toys in
ivory and jet. She had an only daughter
named Gianetta, who served in the shop, and
was simply the most beautiful woman I ever
beheld. Looking back across this weary chasm
of years, and bringing her image before me (as
I can and do) with all the vividness of life, I
am unable, even now, to detect a flaw in her
beauty. I do not attempt to describe her. I
do not believe there is a poet living who could
find the words to do it; but I once saw a
picture that was somewhat like her (not half
so lovely, but still like her), and, for aught I
know, that picture is still hanging where I last
looked at it—- upon the walls of the Louvre.
It represented a woman with brown eyes and
golden hair, looking over her shoulder into a
circular mirror held by a bearded man in the
background. In this man, as I then understood,
the artist had painted his own portrait;
in her, the portrait or the woman he loved. No
picture that I ever saw was half so beautiful,
and yet it was not worthy to be named in the
same breath with Gianetta Coneglia.

You may be certain the widow's shop did not
want for customers. All Genoa knew how fair
a face was to be seen behind that dingy little
counter; and Gianetta, flirt as she was, had
more lovers than she cared to remember, even
by name. Gentle and simple, rich and poor,
from the red-capped sailor buying his earrings
or his amulet, to the nobleman carelessly
purchasing half the filigrees in the window, she
treated them all alike encouraged them,
laughed at them, led them on and turned them
off at her pleasure. She had no more heart than
a marble statue; as Mat and I discovered by-
and-by, to our bitter cost.

I cannot tell to this day how it came about,
or what first led me to suspect how things
were going with us both; but long before the
waning of that autumn a coldness had sprung
up between my friend and myself. It was
nothing that could have been put into words.
It was nothing that either of us could have
explained or justified, to save his life. We
lodged together, ate together, worked
together, exactly as before; we even took our
long evening's walk together, when the day's
labour was ended; and except, perhaps, that we
were more silent than of old, no mere looker-on
could have detected a shadow of change.
Yet there it was, silent and subtle, widening
the gulf between us every day.

It was not his fault. He was too true and
gentle-hearted to have willingly brought about
such a state of things between us. Neither do
I believe—- fiery as my nature is—- that it was
mine. It was all hers—- hers from first to last
the sin, and the shame, and the sorrow.

If she had shown a fair and open preference