only half an
hour at his cabin.

The young peasant and Esperance soon became quite friendly, indulging in
many a ramble in the forest and beside the gurgling brook. The peasant's
name was Lorenzo, and he appeared to lead a free life, totally
unencumbered with avocation of any kind, save occasionally looking after
a few sheep that never strayed far from the banks of the little stream.

Annunziata for the time abandoned her visits to Rome, installing herself
as Giovanni's nurse. She was almost constantly beside him, and her
presence and care were more potent medicines than any the physician
administered. Her smile seemed to exercise a bewitching effect upon the
young Viscount, while her voice sounded in his ravished ear like the
sweetest music. The handsome girl was the very picture of perfect
health, and her well-developed form had all the charm of early maturity,
added to youthful freshness and grace. She wore short skirts, and her
shapely limbs were never encumbered with stockings, while her feet were
invariably bare. A low, loose body with short sleeves displayed her
robust neck and shoulders, and plump, dimpled arms that would have been
the envy of a duchess. Her hands as well as her feet were not small and
the sun had given them a liberal coat of brown, but they were neatly
turned and attractive, while her short, taper fingers were tipped with
pink, carefully trimmed nails. Altogether she looked like the spirit of
the place, a delicious wood nymph as enchanting as any a poet's fancy
ever created and yet a substantial, mortal reality well calculated to
fire a man's blood and set his brain in a whirl. If she had appeared
beautiful in Rome, amid the aristocratic fashion queens of the Piazza
del Popolo, she seemed a thousand-fold more delightful and fascinating
in her humble forest home, where she shook off all restraint and showed
herself as she really was, a bright, innocent child of nature, as pure
as the breath of heaven and as free from guile as the honey-fed
butterfly of the summer sunshine.

The more Giovanni saw of her the more he came under the dominion of her
irresistible charms, the empire of her physical attractiveness.
Gradually he mended, and as his wound healed his strength returned. At
length, towards the close of the week, he was able to quit his bed and
sit in a large chair by the window of his room. It had been agreed upon
between him and Esperance that, during their sojourn at the Solara
cabin, t