to Rome to build St. Peter's?
'Come te non voglio: meglio di te non posso.'"

"I am always struck by his generosity of feeling towards other artists,"
remarked Mrs. Hartley. "Except towards Raffaelle, perhaps. But think of
what he said of Santa Maria Novella, that it was beautiful as a bride,
and that the Baptistery gates were worthy of Paradise. It is only the
great who can afford to praise so magnificently."

Again there was a silence. Then Mrs. Hartley and Edith professed to be
attracted by a group of peasant children who were offering flowers and
fruit for sale; and they strolled to some little distance, talking to
them and to a black-eyed _cantadina_, whose costume struck them as
unusually gay. They even walked a little in the shade of the cypresses,
with which the palazzo seemed to be guarded, as with black and ancient
sentinels; but all this was more for the sake of leaving Brooke alone
with Lettice than because they had any very great interest in the
Italian woman and her children, or the terraced gardens of the Villa
Mozzi. For the time of separation was at hand. The Daltons were
returning very shortly to England, and Brooke had not yet carried out
his intention of asking Lettice Campion to be his wife. He had asked
Mrs. Hartley that day to give him a chance, if possible, of half an
hour's conversation with Lettice alone; but their excursion had not
hitherto afforded him the coveted opportunity. Now, however, it had
come; but while Lettice sat looking towards the towers of Florence with
that pensive and abstracted air, Brooke Dalton shrank from breaking in
upon her reverie.

In truth, Lettice was in no talkative mood. She had been troubled in her
mind all day, and for some days previously, and it was easier for her to
keep silence than for any of the rest. If she had noticed the absence of
Mrs. Hartley and Edith, she would probably have risen from her seat and
insisted on joining them; but strong in the faith that they were but a
few steps away from her, she had thrown the reins of restraint upon the
necks of her wild horses of imagination, and had been borne away by them
to fields where Brooke's fancy was hardly likely to carry him--fields of
purely imaginative joy and ideal beauty, in which he had no mental
share. It was rest and refreshment to her to do this, after the growing
perplexity of the last few days. Absorbed in her enjoyment of the lucent
air, the golden and violet and emerald tints of the landsc