eputable, and the knapsacks
upon our backs no less than criminal. We decided to send at once to Vico
Averso for our baggage.

But these very eccentricities riveted the admiration of our
distinguished host, for only the mad English would think of tramping
through the Val Bergel in the heart of May with a donkey's load on their
backs. Herr Gutwein, a mild, spectacled German, and the manager of this
cosmopolitan palace, was instructed to show us to the best rooms in the
house. From him we learned that the hotel was nearly empty, but that it
was being carried on at great loss, in the hope of ultimate success.

We found it indeed an abode of garish luxury. In the great salon, the
furniture was crimson velvet and gold. All the chairs were gilt. The
very table-legs were gilded. There were clocks chiming and ticking
everywhere, no one of them telling the right time. In the bedrooms,
which were lofty and spacious, there were beautiful canopies, and the
most recent improvements for comfort. The sitting-rooms had glass
observatories built out, like swallows' nests plastered against the
sides of the house. Blue Vallauris vases were set in the corners and
filled with flowers. Turkey carpets of red and blue covered the floor.
Marvellous gold-worked tablecloths from Smyrna were on the tables.
Everywhere there was a tinge of romance made real--the dream of many
luxuries and civilisations transplanted and etherealised among the
mountains.

Then, when we had asked the charges for the rooms and found them
exceedingly reasonable, we received from the excellent Herr Gutwein much
information.

The hotel was the favourite hobby of Count Nicholas. It was the dream of
his life that he should make it pay. While he lived in it, he paid
tariff for his rooms and all that he had. His sister also did the same,
and all her suite. Indeed, the working expenses were at present paid by
Madame the Countess of Castel del Monte, who was a half-sister of Count
Nicholas, and much younger. The husband of Madame was dead some years.
She had been married when no more than a girl to an Italian of thrice
her age. He, dying in the second year of their marriage, had left her
free to please herself as to what she did with her large fortune. Madame
was rich, eccentric, generous; but to men generally more than a little
sarcastic and cold.

At dinner that night Count Nicholas took the head of the table, while
Dr. Carson, the resident English physician, sat at his l