weather-stained, as were the white-washed walls.

"It was a _loggia_, but some of the arches have been filled in and the
others glazed. Ten lire a month, signorina. As to water, there is a
good fountain in the courtyard."

Olive moved in next day.

Heaven helps those who help themselves, she thought, as she borrowed a
broom from her landlady to sweep the floor. The morning was fine and
she opened the windows wide and let the sun and air in. At noon she
went down into the Borgo and bought fried _polenta_ for five soldi and
a slice of chestnut cake at the cook shop, and filled her kettle with
clear cold water from the fountain in the courtyard.

Later, as she waited for the water to boil over her little spirit
lamp, she made a list of absolute necessaries. She had paid a month's
rent in advance, and fifty-three lire remained to her. Fifty-three
lire out of which she must buy a straw mattress, a camp-stool, two
blankets, some crockery and soap.

She went out presently to do her shopping and came back at dusk. She
was young enough to rather enjoy the novelty of her proceedings, and
she slept well that night on the floor, pillowless, and wrapped in her
coarse brown coverings; and though the moon shone in upon her through
the unshuttered windows for a while she did not dream or wake until
the dawn.

Olive tried very hard to get work in the days that followed, and she
went twice to the registry office in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.

"Ah, you were here before." A stout woman came bustling out from the
room behind the shop to speak to her the second time. "There is
nothing for you, _signorina mia_. The ladies who come here will not
take anyone without a character, and a written reference from Milan or
Rome is no good. I told you so before. Last winter Contessa Foscoli
had an English maid with a written character--not from us, I am glad
to say--and she ran away with the chauffeur after a fortnight, and
took a diamond ring and the Contessa's pearls with her. If you cannot
tell me who you were with last I shall not be able to help you."

"The Marchesa Lorenzoni," Olive said.

The woman drew in her breath with a hissing noise, then she smiled,
not pleasantly. "Why did you not say so before? I have heard of you,
of course. The little English girl! Well, I can't help you, my dear.
This is a registry office."

Olive walked out of the shop at once, but she heard the woman calling
to someone in the room at the back to com