ike most Italian gardens, the plants and shrubs were not merely those
of the south, but all that the culture of Holland and England could
contribute to fragrance and color were also there, and the gorgeous
tulips of the Hague, the golden ranunculus and crimson carnation, which
attain their highest beauty in moister climates, here were varied with
chrysanthemums and camellias. Gorgeous creepers trailed from tree to
tree or gracefully trained themselves around the marble groups, and
clusters of orange-trees, glittering with golden fruit, relieved in
their darker green the almost too glaring brilliancy of color.

At a window which opened to the ground--and from which a view of the
garden, and beyond the garden the rich woods of the Borghese Villa, and
beyond these again, the massive dome of St. Peter's, extended--sat two
ladies, so wonderfully alike that a mere glance would have proclaimed
them to be sisters. It is true the Countess Balderoni was several years
older than Lady Augusta Bramleigh; but whether from temperament or
the easier flow of an Italian life in comparison with the more wearing
excitement of an English existence, she certainly looked little, if
anything, her senior.

They were both handsome,--at least, they had that character of good
looks which in Italy is deemed beauty; they were singularly fair, with
large, deep-set blue-gray eyes, and light brown hair of a marvellous
abundance and silkiest fibre. They were alike soft-voiced and
gentle-mannered, and alike strong-willed and obstinate, of an intense
selfishness, and very capricious.

"His eminence is late this evening," said Lady Augusta, looking at her
watch. "It is nigh eight o'clock."

"I fancy, Gusta, he was not quite pleased with you last night. On going
away he said something, I did n't exactly catch it, but it sounded like
'leggierezza;' he thought you had not treated his legends of St. Francis
with becoming seriousness."

"If he wanted me to be grave he oughtn't to tell me funny stories."

"The lives of the saints, Gusta!"

"Well, dearest, that scene in the forest where St. Francis asked the
devil to flog him, and not to desist, even though he should be weak
enough to implore it--was n't that dialogue as droll as anything in
Boccaccio?"

"It's not decent, it's not decorous to laugh at any incident in the
lives of holy men."

"Holy men, then, should never be funny, at least when they are presented
to me, for it's always the absurd side