a is to marry?" the dressmaker asked
curiously. "I had heard that she was engaged, but one hears so many
things. Do you like her?"

"Not very much, but really I see very little of her. I am out all day
teaching."

The door-bell clanged as the girl rose to go. "That is Carolina come
for her stray sheep," she said, smiling. "They will not believe that I
can come home by myself at night."

"They are quite right. If your aunt's servant did not come for you I
should take you back to the Piazza Tolomei myself."

"You forget that I am English."

Olive never attempted to explain her code; she stated her nationality
and went on her way. Her first pupils had all been young girls, but as
it became known that she was really English her circle widened. The
prior of a Dominican convent near San Giorgio, and two privates from a
regiment of Lancers stationed in the Fortezza, came to her to be
taught, and some of Astorre's friends, students at the University,
were very anxious for lessons, and as the Menotti refused to have them
in their house Olive had to hire a room to receive them.

The aunt disapproved. "It is not right," she said, and when Olive
assured her that she could not afford to lose good pupils she shook
her large head.

"You will go your own way, I suppose, but do not bring your men here.
I cannot have soldiers scratching up the carpet with their spurs, or
monks dropping snuff on it."

Olive's days were filled, and she, having no time for the
self-tormentings of idle women, was content to be not quite unhappy.
She needed love and could not rest without it, and she was at least
partially satisfied. Astorre and his mother adored her, thought her
perfect, held her dear. All her pupils seemed to like her, and some of
the students brought her little gifts of flowers, and packets of
chocolate and almond-rock that Maria ate for her. The prior gave her a
plaster statuette of St Catherine. "She was clever, and so are you,"
he said.

"Carmela, I am not really _antipatica_?"

"What foolishness! No."

"Why does Gemma hate me then? No one else does, or if they do they
hide it, but she looks daggers at me always."

Carmela had been invited to tea in her cousin's bedroom. The water did
not boil yet, but her mouth was already full of cake.

"What happened the other night when Gemma let you in?" she mumbled.

"Did she say anything to you?"

"No, but I am not blind or deaf. You have not spoken to each other
since."

O