the
tram-lines converge.

"Is it this way?"

"Si, Signora, quite near the Grotto. Take care, Signora."

"It's all right. Thank you."

They had crossed now and were walking up the street that leads directly
to the tunnel, whose mouth confronted them in the distance. Hermione
felt as if they were going to enter it, were going to walk down it to
the great darkness which seemed to wait for her, to beckon her. But
presently Fabiano turned to the right, and they came into a street
leading up the hill, and stopped almost immediately before a tall house.

"Antonio and Maddalena live here, Signora."

"And Ruffo," she said, as if correcting him.

"Ruffo! Si, Signora, of course."

Hermione looked at the house. It was evidently let out in rooms
to people who were comparatively poor; not very poor, not in any
destitution, but who made a modest livelihood, and could pay their
fourteen or fifteen lire a month for lodging. She divined by its aspect
that every room was occupied. For the building teemed with life, and
echoed with the sound of calling, or screaming, voices. The inhabitants
were surely all of them in a flurry of furious activity. Children were
playing before and upon the door-step, which was flanked by an open
shop, whose interior revealed with a blatant sincerity a rummage of
mysterious edibles--fruit, vegetables, strings of strange objects
that looked poisonous, fungi, and other delights. Above, from several
windows, women leaned out, talking violently to one another. Two were
holding babies, who testified their new-born sense of life by screaming
shrilly. Across other window-spaces heads passed to and fro, denoting
the continuous movement of those within. People in the street called
to people in the house, and the latter shouted in answer, with that
absolute lack of self-consciousness and disregard of the opinions of
others which is the hall-mark of the true Neapolitan. From the corner
came the rumble and the bell notes of the trams going to and coming from
the tunnel that leads to Fuorigrotta. And from every direction rose
the vehement street calls of ambulant venders of the necessaries of
Neapolitan life.

"Ruffo lives here!" said Hermione.

She could hardly believe it. So unsuitable seemed such a dwelling to
that bright-eyed child of the sea, whom she had always seen surrounded
by the wide airs and the waters.

"Si, Signora. They are on the third floor. Shall I take you up?"

Hermione hesitated. Shoul