o the sound of it, and joined in it, feeling that she
had vanquished her mother in argument, and settled one of the most
important questions of life for ever.

"What a pretty steamer!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring suddenly.

"It's a yacht," said Clare after a moment. "The flag is English, too. I
can see it distinctly."

She laid down her work, and her mother closed her book upon her
forefinger again, and they watched the graceful white vessel as she
glided slowly in from the Conca, which she had rounded while they had
been talking.

"It's very big, for a yacht," observed Mrs. Bowring. "They are coming
here."

"They have probably come round from Naples to spend a day," said Clare.
"We are sure to have them up here. What a nuisance!"

"Yes. Everybody comes up here who comes to Amalfi at all. I hope they
won't stay long."

"There is no fear of that," answered Clare. "I heard those people saying
the other day that this is not a place where a vessel can lie any length
of time. You know how the sea sometimes breaks on the beach."

Mrs. Bowring and her daughter desired of all things to be quiet. The
visitors who came, stayed a few days at the hotel, and went away again,
were as a rule tourists or semi-invalids in search of a climate, and
anything but noisy. But people coming in a smart English yacht would
probably be society people, and as such Mrs. Bowring wished that they
would keep away. They would behave as though the place belonged to them,
so long as they remained; they would get all the attention of the
proprietor and of the servants for the time being; and they would make
everybody feel shabby and poor.

The Bowrings were poor, indeed, but they were not shabby. It was perhaps
because they were well aware that nobody could mistake them for average
tourists that they resented the coming of a party which belonged to what
is called society. Mrs. Bowring had a strong aversion to making new
acquaintances, and even disliked being thrown into the proximity of
people who might know friends of hers, who might have heard of her, and
who might talk about her and her daughter. Clare said that her mother's
shyness in this respect was almost morbid; but she had unconsciously
caught a little of it herself, and, like her mother, she was often quite
uselessly on her guard against strangers, of the kind whom she might
possibly be called upon to know, though she was perfectly affable and at
her ease with those whom she looked upon as