man--Mr. Eager! Why, how nice! What a
pleasant surprise!"

"Ah, not for me," said the chaplain blandly, "for I have been watching
you and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time."

"We were chatting to Miss Lavish."

His brow contracted.

"So I saw. Were you indeed? Andate via! sono occupato!" The last remark
was made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was approaching with a
courteous smile. "I am about to venture a suggestion. Would you and
Miss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this week--a
drive in the hills? We might go up by Fiesole and back by Settignano.
There is a point on that road where we could get down and have an
hour's ramble on the hillside. The view thence of Florence is most
beautiful--far better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view
that Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures. That
man had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks at it
to-day? Ah, the world is too much for us."

Miss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew
that Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of the
residential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people
who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siesta
after lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of,
and saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them. Living
in delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in Renaissance
villas on Fiesole's slope, they read, wrote, studied, and exchanged
ideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather perception,
of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their pockets the
coupons of Cook.

Therefore an invitation from the chaplain was something to be proud of.
Between the two sections of his flock he was often the only link, and it
was his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemed
worthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the permanent. Tea
at a Renaissance villa? Nothing had been said about it yet. But if it
did come to that--how Lucy would enjoy it!

A few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of life
were grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager and
Miss Bartlett--even if culminating in a residential tea-party--was
no longer the greatest of them. She echoed the raptures of Charlotte
somewhat faintly. Only when she heard that Mr. Beebe was also coming d