withstanding all this, there was an
attraction in the candid eyes and countenance of little Lady Randolph
which drew her in spite of herself. It was of her own will, though with
a little appearance of reluctance, that she drew near, and soon plunged
into talk--for to tell the truth, now that Jock was gone, Bice felt
occasionally as if she must talk to the winds and trees, and could not
at the hazard of her life keep silence any more. She could scarcely tell
how it was that she was led into confessions of all kinds and
descriptions of the details of her past life.

"We are a little alike," said Lucy. "I was not much older than you are
when my father died, and afterwards we had no real home: to be sure, I
had always Jock. Even when papa was living it was not very homelike, not
what I should choose for a girl. I felt how different it was when I went
to Lady Randolph, who thought of everything----"

Bice did not say anything for some time, and then she laughed. "The
Contessa does not think of everything," she said.

Lucy looked at her with a question in her eyes. She wanted to ask if the
Contessa was kind. But there was a certain domestic treachery involved
in asking such a question.

"People are different," she said, with a certain soothing tone. "We are
not made alike, you know; one person is good in one way and one in
another." This abstract deliverance was not at all in Lucy's way. She
returned to the particular point before them with relief. "England," she
said, "must seem strange to you after your own country. I suppose it is
much colder and less bright?"

"I have no country" said Bice; "everywhere is my country. We have a
house in Rome, but we travel; we go from one place to another--to all
the places that are what you call for pleasure. We go in the season.
Sometimes it is for the waters, sometimes for the sports or the
games--always _festa_ wherever we go."

"And you like that? To be sure, you are so very young; otherwise I
should think it was rather tiresome," Lucy said.

"No, it is not rather tiresome," said Bice, with a roll of her "r," "it
is horrible! When we came here I did not know why it was, but I rejoiced
myself that there was no band playing. I thought at first it was merely
_jour de relache_: but when morning after morning came and no band, that
was heavenly," she said, drawing a long breath.

"A band playing!" Lucy's laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out
with all the gaiety of a child. I