itants of the country. The Italians themselves stir from home very
seldom; they almost never admit foreigners into their own houses, and
when forced abroad seek cheap Italian inns rather than the innumerable
boarding-houses infested by the outer barbarian. Italian peasant life is
open to all foreigners, but not that of the middle classes.

Our landlord had a daughter whose cheek was pale and whose garments hung
loosely upon her. When first we remarked this and her heavy eye,
everybody laughed.

"The usual story,--loves and rides away," was remarked in various
languages.

It was heartless to laugh, but we could not help it. For wan and
drooping landlords' daughters had become so familiar to us in Italian
_pensioni_ that we needed only to glance at the set of each one's gown
and the tint of her cheek to know if HE were still present and wooing or
had faithlessly ridden away. The race, however, was not always to the
rider.

One evening under our window, when the air swooned with languid scent of
lemon- and orange-blossoms, we heard a sobbing and a sighing that
reminded us of the Mock Turtle in "Alice in Wonderland." Glancing out,
by the soft light of the summer moon, enhanced by the shimmering water,
we saw two persons who seemed to be weeping in each other's arms under a
shuddering ilex. The stouter one--he was not the taller--we recognized
as a young Teuton for whose sake we had seen a gown very loose and a
cheek very wan afar off among the Alban Hills only a month before.

"I love you, Tita, I love you. I have thought I loved a dozen times
before, but I was mistaken. I never loved any girl before," he boohooed.

"_Dio mio!_" laughed the girl. "All the _Tedeschi_ say that who come
here. I wonder they are not tired of the old tune. I--I am _fiance_ to a
_bel Espagnol_ who rode away a month ago, and who ought to have been
back before now."

We found our Teuton fellow-_pensionnaires_ to have tastes more unnatural
than for landlords' daughters. One of them we had remarked for his
extreme beauty, not entirely of feature and rich olive hue, but of
pathetic, dreamy expression,--as we said, like an ideal St. John. At
first we never spoke of him except as "St. John." We gradually ceased to
call him so, however, when we had seen him several times at table, and
we grew finally so coarsely irreverent as to call him "_Mange-tout_."

Our meat was brought from distant Naples, making the journey without
ice, under a broiling It