ith a bitter disappointment. She
had brought back a pretty sketch of the Pelasgic or Cyclopean Gate
at Segni, which, as she believed, all other artists had completely
overlooked. Now, at Marseilles, she met Lady Frances Fenwick, who showed
her her album, in which appeared, between a sonnet and a dried flower,
the very gate in question, brilliantly touched in with sienna. Miss
Lydia gave her drawing to her maid--and lost all admiration for Pelasgic
structures.

This unhappy frame of mind was shared by Colonel Nevil, who, since the
death of his wife, looked at everything through his daughter's eyes. In
his estimation, Italy had committed the unpardonable sin of boring his
child, and was, in consequence, the most wearisome country on the face
of the earth. He had no fault to find, indeed, with the pictures and
statues, but he was in a position to assert that Italian sport was
utterly wretched, and that he had been obliged to tramp ten leagues
over the Roman Campagna, under a burning sun, to kill a few worthless
red-legged partridges.

The morning after his arrival at Marseilles he invited Captain
Ellis--his former adjutant, who had just been spending six weeks in
Corsica--to dine with him. The captain told Miss Lydia a story about
bandits, which had the advantage of bearing no resemblance to the robber
tales with which she had been so frequently regaled, on the road between
Naples and Rome, and he told it well. At dessert, the two men, left
alone over their claret, talked of hunting--and the colonel learned that
nowhere is there more excellent sport, or game more varied and abundant,
than in Corsica. "There are plenty of wild boars," said Captain Ellis.
"And you have to learn to distinguish them from the domestic pigs, which
are astonishingly like them. For if you kill a pig, you find yourself in
difficulties with the swine-herds. They rush out of the thickets (which
they call _maquis_) armed to the teeth, make you pay for their beasts,
and laugh at you besides. Then there is the mouflon, a strange animal,
which you will not find anywhere else--splendid game, but hard to
get--and stags, deer, pheasants, and partridges--it would be impossible
to enumerate all the kinds with which Corsica swarms. If you want
shooting, colonel, go to Corsica! There, as one of my entertainers
said to me, you can get a shot at every imaginable kind of game, from a
thrush to a man!"

At tea, the captain once more delighted Lydia with the tale