eir enjoyment of the adventure, they graciously followed the
handsome youth into the villa.

With confiding hospitality he took them everywhere--into his mother's
room, the kitchen, and nursery. In the latter place they found two small
boys, who bore such a striking resemblance to Napoleon I. that the girls
spoke of it, and were enraptured at the reply they received.

'Truly yes: we belong to the family. My mother is a Buonaparte, my
father Count ----'

'Here's richness and romance!' 'What will Livy say?' whispered the girls
to one another, as their guide left them in the _salon_ and went to find
his father.

'She will scold us for coming here,' said Amanda, remembering her own
lectures on the proprieties.

'Yes; but she will forgive us the minute we say Napoleon, for that bad
little man is one of her heroes,' added Mat, pretending to be admiring
the view, while she privately examined a lady in a bower below--a stout,
dark lady, with all the family traits so strongly marked that there
could be no doubt of the young man's assertion.

Presently he came back with an affable old gentleman, who evidently had
an eye to the main chance; for, in spite of his elegance and affability,
he asked a great price for his rooms, and felt that any untitled
stranger should be glad to pay well for the honour of living under the
roof of a Buonaparte.

Amanda left the decision to her invisible duenna, and with a profusion
of compliments and thanks, they got away, being gallantly escorted to
the gate by the young count, who filled their hands with flowers, and
gazed pensively after them, as if he found the society of two bright
American girls very agreeable after that of his lofty parents, or the
peasantry of the town.

Home they ran and bounced in upon Livy, blooming and breathless, to
pour out their tale, and suggest an immediate departure to the blissful
spot where counts and crocuses flourished with Italian luxuriance.

But after the first excitement had subsided, Lavinia put a wet blanket
on the entire plan by declaring that she would never board with any
grasping old patrician, who would charge for every bow, and fall back on
his ancestors if he was found cheating. She would go and look at the
place, but not enter it, nor be beholden to the resident Apollo for so
much as a dandelion.

So the mourning damsels led the griffin over the viaduct, through the
dirty little town, by the villa on its least attractive side. Up at the