oment with amused comprehension, then she called peremptorily:

"Giuseppe, you know you must spade the garden border."

Poor Giuseppe, in spite of his nautical costume, was man of all work. He
glanced dismally toward the garden border which lay basking in the
sunshine under the wall that divided Villa Rosa from the rest of the
world. It contained every known flower which blossoms in July in the
kingdom of Italy from camellias and hydrangeas to heliotrope and wall
flowers. Its spading was a complicated business and it lay too far off to
permit of conversation. Giuseppe was not only a lazy, but also a social
soul.

"Signorina," he suggested, "would you not like a sail?"

She shook her head. "There is not wind enough and it is too hot and too
sunny."

"But yes, there's a wind, and cool--when you get out on the lake. I will
put up the awning, signorina, the sun shall not touch you."

She continued to shake her head and her eyes wandered suggestively to the
hydrangeas, but Giuseppe still made a feint of preoccupation. Not being a
cruel mistress, she dropped the subject, and turned back to her
conversation with the washer-girls. They were discussing--a pleasant
topic for a sultry summer afternoon--the probable content of Paradise.
The three girls were of the opinion that it was made up of warm sunshine
and cool shade, of flowers and singing birds and sparkling waters, of
blue skies and cloud-capped mountains--not unlike, it will be observed,
the very scene which at the moment stretched before them. In so much they
were all agreed, but there were several debatable points. Whether the
stones were made of gold, and whether the houses were not gold too, and,
that being the case, whether it would not hurt your eyes to look at them.
Marietta declared, blasphemously, as the others thought, that she
preferred a simple gray stone villa or at most one of pink stucco, to
all the golden edifices that Paradise contained.

It was by now fifteen minutes past four, and a spectator had arrived,
though none of the five were aware of his presence. The spectator was
standing on the wall above the garden border examining with appreciation
the idyllic scene below him, and with most particular appreciation, the
dainty white-clad person of the girl on the balustrade. He was
wondering--anxiously--how he might make his presence known. For no very
tangible reason he had suddenly become conscious that the matter would be
easier if he carried in h