ted with the view, the paramount
distinction of the place, Mr. Osmond directed her steps into the garden
without more delay. Madame Merle and the Countess had had chairs brought
out, and as the afternoon was lovely the Countess proposed they should
take their tea in the open air. Pansy therefore was sent to bid the
servant bring out the preparations. The sun had got low, the golden
light took a deeper tone, and on the mountains and the plain that
stretched beneath them the masses of purple shadow glowed as richly
as the places that were still exposed. The scene had an extraordinary
charm. The air was almost solemnly still, and the large expanse of the
landscape, with its garden-like culture and nobleness of outline,
its teeming valley and delicately-fretted hills, its peculiarly
human-looking touches of habitation, lay there in splendid harmony and
classic grace. "You seem so well pleased that I think you can be trusted
to come back," Osmond said as he led his companion to one of the angles
of the terrace.

"I shall certainly come back," she returned, "in spite of what you say
about its being bad to live in Italy. What was that you said about one's
natural mission? I wonder if I should forsake my natural mission if I
were to settle in Florence."

"A woman's natural mission is to be where she's most appreciated."

"The point's to find out where that is."

"Very true--she often wastes a great deal of time in the enquiry. People
ought to make it very plain to her."

"Such a matter would have to be made very plain to me," smiled Isabel.

"I'm glad, at any rate, to hear you talk of settling. Madame Merle had
given me an idea that you were of a rather roving disposition. I thought
she spoke of your having some plan of going round the world."

"I'm rather ashamed of my plans; I make a new one every day."

"I don't see why you should be ashamed; it's the greatest of pleasures."

"It seems frivolous, I think," said Isabel. "One ought to choose
something very deliberately, and be faithful to that."

"By that rule then, I've not been frivolous."

"Have you never made plans?"

"Yes, I made one years ago, and I'm acting on it to-day."

"It must have been a very pleasant one," Isabel permitted herself to
observe.

"It was very simple. It was to be as quiet as possible."

"As quiet?" the girl repeated.

"Not to worry--not to strive nor struggle. To resign myself. To be
content with little." He spoke these sentences