please my sister, Sandra mia,
will you not?"

Vittoria shook her head. Like those who have become passive, she read
faces--the duchess's imploring looks thrown from time to time to
the Lenkenstein ladies, Wilfrid's oppressed forehead, the resolute
neutrality of the countess--and she was not only incapable of seconding
Laura's aggressive war, but shrank from the involvement and sickened at
the indelicacy. Anna's eyes were fixed on her and filled her with dread
lest she should be resolving to demand a private interview.

"You refuse to sing?" said Laura; and under her breath, "When I bid you
not, you insist!"

"Can she possibly sing before she grows accustomed to the air of the
place?" said the duchess.

Merthyr gravely prescribed a week's diet on grapes antecedent to the
issuing of a note. "Have you never heard what a sustained grape-diet
will do for the bullfinches?"

"Never," exclaimed the duchess. "Is that the secret of their German
education?"

"Apparently, for we cannot raise them to the same pitch of perfection in
England."

"I will try it upon mine. Every morning they shall have two big
bunches."

"Fresh plucked, and with the first sunlight on them. Be careful of the
rules."

Wilfrid remarked, "To make them exhibit the results, you withdraw the
benefit suddenly, of course?"

"We imitate the general run of Fortune's gifts as much as we can," said
Merthyr.

"That is the training for little shrill parrots: we have none in Italy,"
Laura sighed, mock dolefully; "I fear the system would fail among us."

"It certainly would not build Como villas," said Lena.

Laura cast sharp eyes on her pretty face.

"It is adapted for caged voices that are required to chirrup to tickle
the ears of boors."

Anna said to the duchess: "I hope your little birds are all well this
morning."

"Come to them presently with me and let our ears be tickled," the
duchess laughed in answer; and the spiked dialogue broke, not to revive.

The duchess had observed the constant direction of Anna's eyes upon
Vittoria during the repast, and looked an interrogation at Anna, who
replied to it firmly. "I must be present," the duchess whispered. She
drew Vittoria away by the hand, telling Merthyr Powys that it was unkind
to him, but that he should be permitted to claim his fair friend from
noon to the dinner-bell.

Laura and Bianca were discussing the same subject as the one for which
Anna desired an interview with Vittoria. It was