th the entresol.

The villa was superbly situated upon an advancing spur of hill, so
that, looking down from its balconies, looking out from between the
pale and slender columns of the pavilion, the whole city of Naples lay
revealed below.--Naples, that bewildering union of modern commerce and
classic association--its domes, its palms, its palaces, its crowded,
hoarse-shouting quays, its theatres and giant churches, its steep and
filthy lanes black with shadow, its reeking markets, its broad,
sun-scorched piazzas, its glittering, blue waters, its fringing forest
of tall masts, and innumerable, close-packed hulls of oceangoing ships!
Naples, city of glaring contrasts--heaven of rascality, hell of horses,
unrivaled all the western world over for natural beauty, for spiritual
and moral grossness! Naples, breeding, teeming, laughing, fighting,
festering, city of music, city of fever and death! Naples, at once
abominable and enchanting--city to which, spite of noise, stenches,
cruelty and squalor, those will return, of necessity, and return again,
whose imagination has once been taken captive in the meshes of her
many-coloured net!

And among the captives of Naples, on the brilliant morning in question
in the early spring of the year 1871, open-eared and open-eyed to its
manifest and manifold incongruities, relishing alike the superficial
beauty and underlying bestiality of it, was very certainly Helen de
Vallorbes. Several years had elapsed since she had visited this
fascinating locality, and she could congratulate herself upon
conditions adapted to a more intimate and comprehensive acquaintance
with its very various humours than she had ever enjoyed before. She had
spent more than one winter here, it is true, immediately subsequent to
her marriage. But she had then been required to associate exclusively
with the members of her husband's family, and to fill a definite
position in the aristocratic society of the place. The tone of that
society was not a little lax. Yet, being notably defective in the
saving grace of humour--as to the feminine portion of it, at all
events--its laxity proved sadly deficient in vital interest. The fair
Neapolitans displayed as small intelligence in their intrigues as in
their piety. In respect of both they remained ignorant, prejudiced,
hopelessly conventional. Their noble ancestresses of the Renaissance
understood and did these things better--so Helen reflected. She found
herself both bored