eft hand, and
Madame at his right. I sat next to the Countess, and Henry Fenwick next
to the doctor. We made a merry party. The Count opened for us a bottle
of Forzato and another of Sassella, of the quaint, untranslatable
bouquet which will not bear transportation over the seas, and to taste
which you must go to the Swiss confines of the Valtellina.

"Lucia," said Count Nicholas, "you will join me in a bottle of the Straw
wine in honour of the stopping of the horses; and you will drink to the
health of these gentlemen who are with us, to whom we owe so much."
Afterwards we drank to Madame, to the Count himself, and to the
interests of science in the person of the doctor. Then finally we
pledged the common good of the hotel and kursaal of the Promontonio.

The Countess was dressed in some rose-coloured fabric, thickly draped
with black lace, through whose folds the faint pink blush struggled
upward with some suggestion of rose fragrance, so sheathed was she in
close-fitting drapery. She looked still a very girl, though there was
the slower grace of womanhood in the lissom turn of her figure, slender
and _svelte_. Her blue-black hair had purple lights in it. And her great
dark violet eyes were soft as La Valliere's. I know not why, but to
myself I called her from that moment, "My Lady of the Violet Crown."
There was a passion-flower in her hair, and on her pale face her lips,
perfectly shaped, lay like the twin petals of a geranium flower fallen a
little apart.

Dinner was over. The lingering lights of May were shining through the
hill gaps, glorifying the scant woods and the little mountain lake.
Henry Fenwick and the Count were soon deep in shooting and
breechloaders. Presently they disappeared in the direction of the
Count's rooms to examine some new and beautiful specimens more at their
leisure.

In an hour Henry came rushing back to us in great excitement.

"I have written for all my things from Lago d'Istria," he said, "and I
am getting my guns from home. There is some good shooting, the Count
says. Do you object to us staying here a little time?"

I did not contradict him, for indeed such a new-born desire to abide in
one place was at that moment very much to my mind. And though I could
not conceive what, save rabbits, there could be to shoot in May on a
sub-Alpine hillside, I took care not to say a word which might damp my
pupil's excellent enthusiasms.

CHAPTER VI

LOVE ME A LITTLE--NOT TOO MUCH