gs on that side are small and mean
and overshadowed by the great yellow palace of the Spinola opposite.
Olive's friends lived over a wine shop, but the entrance was some way
down the street.

"Fortunately, my dear," as they remarked, "though really the place is
very quiet. People go outside the gates to get drunk."

Both the women seemed glad to see her. Her room was ready and a meal
had been prepared and the cloth laid at one end of the work-table. The
younger sister was a dressmaker too, and the floor was strewn with
scraps of lining and silk. A white dress lay on the sofa, carefully
folded and covered with a sheet of tissue paper.

"You look tired, Olive. Were you not happy in Florence?"

The girl admitted that the Lorenzoni had not been very kind to her.
She had left them and had been living on her savings. It had been hard
to find other employment. "I want to work," she said. "You will let me
help you, and I hope to get lessons."

She asked to be allowed to wash the plates and dishes and put them
away in the tiny kitchen. She was in a mood to bear anything better
than the idleness that left room for her own sad thoughts, and she
wished that they would let her do some sewing. "I am not good at
needlework, but I can hem and put on buttons," she pleaded.

Signora Giulia smiled at her. She was small, and she had a pale,
dragged look and many lines about her weak eyes. "No, thank you, my
dear. I have a girl apprentice who comes during the day, and I do the
cutting out and designing and the embroidery myself. You must not
tire yourself in the kitchen either. We have an old woman in to do
_mezzo servizio_."

It was nine o'clock, and the narrow streets were echoing now to the
hoarse cries of the newsvendors: "_Tribuna!_" "_Tribuna!_"

"I will go and unpack then, and to-morrow I shall find some registry
offices and try to get English lessons."

"Yes, go, _nina_, and sleep well. You look tired. You must get
stronger while you are with us."

For a long time she could not sleep. In the summer she had played with
the thought of love, and then she had been able to close her eyes and
feel Jean Avenel close beside her, leaning towards her, saying that
she must not be afraid, that he would not hurt her. It had been a sort
of game, a childish game of make-believe that seemed to hurt no one,
not even herself. But now she was hurt indeed; the remembrance of his
kisses ached upon her lips.

When Tor di Rocca had asked her