There could be no better resting-place for a warm afternoon.

It was close upon four--five minutes past to be accurate--and the usual
afternoon quiet that enveloped the garden had fled before the garrulous
advent of four girls. Three of them, with black eyes and blacker hair,
were kneeling on the beach thumping and scrubbing a pile of linen. In
spite of their chatter they were working busily, and the grass beyond the
water-wall was already white with bleaching sheets, while a lace-trimmed
petticoat fluttered from a near-by oleander, and rows of silk stockings
stretched the length of the parapet. The most undeductive observer would
have guessed by this time that the pink villa, visible through the trees,
contained no such modern conveniences as stationary tubs.

The fourth girl, with grey eyes and yellow-brown hair, was sitting at
ease on the balustrade, fanning herself with a wide-brimmed hat and
dangling her feet, clad in white tennis shoes, over the edge. She wore a
suit of white linen cut sailor fashion, low at the throat and with
sleeves rolled to the elbows. She looked very cool and comfortable and
free as she talked, with the utmost friendliness, to the three girls
below. Her Italian, to an unaccustomed ear, was exactly as glib as
theirs.

The washer-girls were dressed in the gayest of peasant clothes--green and
scarlet petticoats, flowered kerchiefs, coral beads and flashing
earrings; you would have to go far into the hills in these degenerate
days before meeting their match on an Italian highway. But the girl on
the wall, who was actual if not titular ruler of the domain of Villa
Rosa, possessed a keen eye for effect; and--she plausibly argued--since
one must have washer-women about, why not, in the name of all that is
beautiful, have them in harmony with tradition and the landscape?
Accordingly, she designed and purchased their costumes herself.

There drifted presently into sight from around the little promontory that
hid the village a blue and white boat with yellow lateen sails. She was
propelled gondolier fashion, for the wind was a mere breath, by a
picturesque youth in a suit of dark blue with white sash and flaring
collar--the hand of the girl on the wall was here visible also.

The boat fluttering in toward shore, looked like a giant butterfly; and
her name, emblazoned in gold on her prow, was, appropriately, the
_Farfalla_. Earlier in the season, with a green hull and a dingy brown
sail, she had b