se that she could not resent it. He took the copper jar
away with him. "The _padrone_ says you will want some more water," he
said smilingly.

"Yes. But--but if you bring it back you can leave it outside the
door."

The coffee was not good, but it was hot, and the rolls were crisp and
delicious, and Olive ate and drank happily and with an excellent
appetite. No more listening to mangled scales and murdered nocturnes
and sonatas, no more interminable meals at which she must sit silent
and yet avoid "glumness," no more walking at Mamie's heels.

She was free!

Presently she said to herself, more soberly, that nevertheless she
must work somehow to gain her livelihood. Yes, she must find work
soon. The Aquila Verde would shelter and feed her for six lire a day.
Her last month's salary of eighty lire had been paid her four days
ago, and she had already spent more than half of it on things she
needed, new boots, an umbrella, gloves, odds and ends. This month's
money had been given her last night, and she had left a few lire for
the servant who had always brought up her dinner to her room, and had
made Gigia a little present. The cabman had bullied her into giving
him two lire. She had about one hundred remaining to her. Sixes into
one hundred.... Working it out carefully on the back of an old
envelope she found that she might live on her means for sixteen days,
and then go out into the streets with four lire in her pocket--no,
three, since she could scarcely leave without giving a _mancia_ to the
young man whom she now heard whistling "Lucia" in the corridor.

"The hot water, signorina."

"A thousand thanks."

Surely in a few days she would find work. It occurred to her that she
might advertise. "Young English lady would give lessons. Terms
moderate. Apply O. A., Aquila Verde." She wrote it out presently, and
took it herself to the office of one of the local papers.

"I have saved fifteen centesimi," she thought as she walked rather
wearily back by the long Via Cavour.

Three days passed and she was the poorer by eighteen lire. On Sunday
she spent the morning at the Belle Arti Gallery. Haggard saints peered
out at her from dark corners. Flora smiled wistfully through her
tears; she saw the three strong archangels leading boy Tobias home
across the hills, and Angelico's monks and nuns meeting the Blessed
Ones in the green, daisied fields of Paradise, and for a little while
she was able to forget that no one seemed