er music of her voice.
She said, after waiting a moment in case the music was going to
continue, for she didn't wish to miss any of it, that she wanted
orders; she had been to the Signorina's mother, but in vain.

"She is not my mother," repudiated Lady Caroline angrily; and her
anger sounded like the regretful wail of a melodious orphan.

Costanza poured forth pity. She too, she explained, had no
mother--

Lady Caroline interrupted with the curt information that her
mother was alive and in London.

Costanza praised God and the saints that the young lady did not
yet know what it was like to be without a mother. Quickly enough did
misfortunes overtake one; no doubt the young lady already had a
husband.

"No," said Lady Caroline icily. Worse than jokes in the morning
did she hate the idea of husbands. And everybody was always trying to
press them on her--all her relations, all her friends, all the evening
papers. After all, she could only marry one, anyhow; but you would
think from the way everybody talked, and especially those persons who
wanted to be husbands, that she could marry at least a dozen.

Her soft, pathetic "No" made Costanza, who was standing close to
her, well with sympathy.

"Poor little one," said Costanza, moved actually to pat her
encouragingly on the shoulder, "take hope. There is still time."

"For lunch," said Lady Caroline freezingly, marveling as she
spoke that she should be patted, she who had taken so much trouble to
come to a place, remote and hidden, where she could be sure that among
other things of a like oppressive nature pattings also were not, "we
will have--"

Costanza became business-like. She interrupted with suggestions,
and her suggestions were all admirable and all expensive.

Lady Caroline did not know they were expensive, and fell in with
them at once. They sounded very nice. Every sort of young vegetables
and fruits came into them, and much butter and a great deal of cream
and incredible numbers of eggs. Costanza said enthusiastically at the
end, as a tribute to this acquiescence, that of the many ladies and
gentlemen she had worked for on temporary jobs such as this she
preferred the English ladies and gentlemen. She more than preferred
them--they roused devotion in her. For they knew what to order; they
did not skimp; they refrained from grinding down the faces of the poor.

From this Lady Caroline concluded that she had been extravagant,
and promptly