f Charles, she insults Irma, she
insults us. Therefore I forbid her, and if she disobeys we have done
with her for ever."

"I will do all I can," said Philip in a low voice. It was the first time
he had had anything to do. He kissed his mother and sister and puzzled
Irma. The hall was warm and attractive as he looked back into it from
the cold March night, and he departed for Italy reluctantly, as for
something commonplace and dull.

Before Mrs. Herriton went to bed she wrote to Mrs. Theobald, using plain
language about Lilia's conduct, and hinting that it was a question on
which every one must definitely choose sides. She added, as if it was an
afterthought, that Mrs. Theobald's letter had arrived that morning.

Just as she was going upstairs she remembered that she never covered
up those peas. It upset her more than anything, and again and again she
struck the banisters with vexation. Late as it was, she got a lantern
from the tool-shed and went down the garden to rake the earth over them.
The sparrows had taken every one. But countless fragments of the letter
remained, disfiguring the tidy ground.

Chapter 2

When the bewildered tourist alights at the station of Monteriano, he
finds himself in the middle of the country. There are a few houses round
the railway, and many more dotted over the plain and the slopes of the
hills, but of a town, mediaeval or otherwise, not the slightest sign. He
must take what is suitably termed a "legno"--a piece of wood--and
drive up eight miles of excellent road into the middle ages. For it is
impossible, as well as sacrilegious, to be as quick as Baedeker.

It was three in the afternoon when Philip left the realms of
commonsense. He was so weary with travelling that he had fallen asleep
in the train. His fellow-passengers had the usual Italian gift of
divination, and when Monteriano came they knew he wanted to go there,
and dropped him out. His feet sank into the hot asphalt of the platform,
and in a dream he watched the train depart, while the porter who ought
to have been carrying his bag, ran up the line playing touch-you-last
with the guard. Alas! he was in no humour for Italy. Bargaining for a
legno bored him unutterably. The man asked six lire; and though Philip
knew that for eight miles it should scarcely be more than four, yet he
was about to give what he was asked, and so make the man discontented
and unhappy for the rest of the day. He was saved from this social
bl