lickered in her eyes, while she appeared to ponder. (But I am
not sure whether she was pondering the speech or its speaker.)

"Really?" she said, in the end. "Did did Nature build the villas, and
plant the cornfields?"

But his automatic second-self was on its mettle.

"Yes," it asserted boldly; "the kind of men who build villas and plant
cornfields must be classified as natural forces."

She gave a light little laugh--and again appeared to ponder for a
moment.

Then, with another gracious inclination of the head, and an
interrogative brightening of the eyes, "Mr. Marchdale no doubt?" she
hazarded.

Peter bowed.

"I am very glad if, on the whole, you like our little effect," she went
on, glancing in the direction of Monte Sfiorito. "I"--there was the
briefest suspension--"I am your landlady."

For a third time Peter bowed, a rather more elaborate bow than his
earlier ones, a bow of respectful enlightenment, of feudal homage.

"You arrived this afternoon?" she conjectured.

"By the five-twenty-five from Bergamo," said he.

"A very convenient train," she remarked; and then, in the pleasantest
manner, whereby the unusual mode of valediction was carried off, "Good
evening."

"Good evening," responded Peter, and accomplished his fourth bow.

She moved away from the river, up the smooth lawns, between the trees,
towards Castel Ventirose, a flitting whiteness amid the surrounding
green.

Peter stood still, looking after her.

But when she was out of sight, he sank back upon his rustic bench, like
a man exhausted, and breathed a prodigious sigh. He was absurdly pale.
All the same, clenching his fists, and softly pounding the table with
them, he muttered exultantly, between his teeth, "What luck! What
incredible luck! It's she--it's she, as I 'm a heathen. Oh, what
supernatural luck!"

III

Old Marietta--the bravest of small figures, in her neat black-and-white
peasant dress, with her silver ornaments, and her red silk coif and
apron--came for the coffee things.

But at sight of Peter, she abruptly halted. She struck an attitude of
alarm. She fixed him with her fiery little black eyes.

"The Signorino is not well!" she cried, in the tones of one launching a
denunciation.

Peter roused himself.

"Er--yes--I 'm pretty well, thank you," he reassured her. "I--I 'm only
dying," he added, sweetly, after an instant's hesitation.

"Dying--!" echoed Marietta, wild, aghast.

"Ah, but you can save