e and look at her, and she
felt her cheeks burning as she crossed the road. "The little English
girl!" What were they saying about her?

One morning she went into one of the English tea-rooms. It was kept
by two elderly maiden ladies, and one of them came forward to ask her
what she wanted. The Pagoda was deserted at that hour, a barren
wilderness of little bamboo tables and chairs, tea-less and cake-less.
The walls were distempered green and sparsely decorated with Japanese
paper fans, and Olive noticed them and the pattern of the carpet and
remembered them afterwards as one remembers the frieze, the
engravings, the stale periodicals in a dentist's waiting-room.

"Do--do you want a waitress?"

The older woman's face changed. Oh, that change! The girl knew it so
well now that she saw it ten times a day.

"No. My sister and I manage very well, and we have an Italian maid to
do the washing up."

"Thank you," Olive said, faltering. "You don't know anyone who wants
an English girl? I have been very well educated. At least--"

"I am afraid not."

Poor Olive. She was an unskilled workwoman, not especially gifted in
any way or fitted by her upbringing to earn her daily bread. Long
years of her girlhood had been spent at a select school, and in the
result she knew a part of the Book of Kings by heart, with the Mercy
speech from the _Merchant of Venice_ and the date of the Norman
Conquest. Every day she bought the _Fieramosca_, and she tried to see
the other local papers when they came out. Several people advertised
who wanted to exchange lessons, but no one seemed inclined to pay.
Once she saw names she knew in the social column.

"The Marchese Lorenzoni is going to Monte Carlo, and he
will join the Marchesa and Miss Whittaker in Cairo later
in the season."

"Prince Tor di Rocca is going to Egypt for Christmas."

It was easy to read between the lines.

CHAPTER VIII

Florence, in the great days of the Renaissance, bore many men whom now
she delights to honour, and Ugo Manelli was one of these. He helped to
build a bridge over the Arno, he had his palace in the Corso frescoed
by Masaccio, he framed sumptuary laws, and he wrote sonnets, charming
sonnets that are still read by the people who care for such things.
The fifth centenary of his birthday, on the twenty-eighth of November,
was to be kept with great rejoicings therefore. There were to be
fireworks and illuminations of the streets for