nder a floral hat--Isabel!"

"A yellow bun under a floral hat," I repeated, "that would be Isabel, if
you add a good complexion and a look of deportment. Yes, now I see her.
Mrs. Portheris on one side, Mr. Mafferton on the other. What do you want
to do?"

"Assassinate Mafferton," said Dicky. "Does it look to you as if he had
been getting there at all."

"So far as one can see from behind, I should say he has made some
progress, but I don't think, Dicky, that he has arrived. He is
constitutionally slow," I added, "about arriving."

At that moment the party rose. Without a word we, too, got on our feet
and automatically followed, Dicky treading the reserved seats of the
court of Berengarius as if they had been the back rows of a Bowery
theatre. The classics were wholly obscured for him by a floral hat and a
yellow bun. I, too, abandoned my speculations cheerfully, for I expected
Mrs. Portheris, confronted with Dicky, to be more entertaining than any
gladiator.

We came up with them at the exit, and that august lady, as we
approached, to our astonishment, greeted us with effusion.

[Illustration: "Do you see?"]

"We thought," she declared, "that we had lost you altogether. This is
quite delightful. Now we _must_ reunite!" Dicky was certainly included.
It was extraordinary. "And your dear father and mother," went on Mrs.
Portheris, "I am longing to hear their experiences since we parted.
Where are you? The Colomba? Why what a coincidence! We are there, too!
How small the world is!"

"Then you have only just arrived," said Mr. Dod to Miss Portheris, who
had turned away her head, and was regarding the distant mountains.

"Yes."

"By the 11.30 p.m.?"

"No. By the 2.30 p.m."

"Had you a pleasant journey up from Naples?"

"It was rather dusty."

I saw that something quite awful was going on and conversed volubly with
Mrs. Portheris and Mr. Mafferton to give Dicky a chance, but in a moment
I, too, felt a refrigerating influence proceeding from the floral hat
and the bun for which I could not account.

"Where have you been?" inquired Dicky, "if I may ask."

"At Vallombrosa."

There was also a parasol and it twisted indifferently.

"Ah--among the leaves! And were they as thick as William says they are?"

"I don't understand you." And, indeed, this levity assorted
incomprehensively with the black despair that sat on Dicky's
countenance. It was really very painful in spite of Mrs. Portheris's
unusual humanit