rass and crying "Water," where the passage was blocked by mules
and cleared by whips and curses, where the women walked barefoot,
their heads balancing baskets, and cripples hastily displayed mutilated
members; it issued among steep green fields, not so green but that the
earth showed through. Great trees now shaded all but the centre of the
road, and a mountain stream, so shallow and so swift that it plaited
itself into strands as it ran, raced along the edge. Higher they went,
until Ridley and Rachel walked behind; next they turned along a lane
scattered with stones, where Mr. Pepper raised his stick and silently
indicated a shrub, bearing among sparse leaves a voluminous purple
blossom; and at a rickety canter the last stage of the way was
accomplished.

The villa was a roomy white house, which, as is the case with most
continental houses, looked to an English eye frail, ramshackle, and
absurdly frivolous, more like a pagoda in a tea-garden than a place
where one slept. The garden called urgently for the services of
gardener. Bushes waved their branches across the paths, and the blades
of grass, with spaces of earth between them, could be counted. In the
circular piece of ground in front of the verandah were two cracked
vases, from which red flowers drooped, with a stone fountain between
them, now parched in the sun. The circular garden led to a long garden,
where the gardener's shears had scarcely been, unless now and then, when
he cut a bough of blossom for his beloved. A few tall trees shaded it,
and round bushes with wax-like flowers mobbed their heads together in
a row. A garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with
raised beds of bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England,
would have been out of place upon the side of this bare hill. There
was no ugliness to shut out, and the villa looked straight across the
shoulder of a slope, ribbed with olive trees, to the sea.

The indecency of the whole place struck Mrs. Chailey forcibly. There
were no blinds to shut out the sun, nor was there any furniture to speak
of for the sun to spoil. Standing in the bare stone hall, and surveying
a staircase of superb breadth, but cracked and carpetless, she further
ventured the opinion that there were rats, as large as terriers at
home, and that if one put one's foot down with any force one would come
through the floor. As for hot water--at this point her investigations
left her speechless.

"Poor