by common consent, got to be _the_ Ghita, within a week after she
had landed.

Ghita, it was known, had travelled, for she had publicly reached Elba in
a felucca, coming, as was said, from the Neapolitan states. If this were
true, she was probably the only person of her sex in the town who had
ever seen Vesuvius, or planted her eyes on the wonders of a part of
Italy that has a reputation second only to that of Rome. Of course, if
any girl in Porto Ferrajo could imagine the character of the stranger it
must be Ghita; and it was on this supposition that she had unwittingly,
and, if the truth must be owned, unwillingly, collected around her a
_clientelle_ of at least a dozen girls of her own age, and apparently of
her own class. The latter, however, felt no necessity for the reserve
maintained by the curious who pressed near 'Maso; for, while they
respected their guest and friend, and would rather listen to her
surmises than to those of any other person, they had such a prompting
desire to hear their own voices that not a minute escaped without a
question, or a conjecture, both volubly and quite audibly expressed. The
interjections, too, were somewhat numerous, as the guesses were crude
and absurd. One said it was a vessel with despatches from Livorno,
possibly with "His Eccellenza" on board; but she was reminded that
Leghorn lay to the north, and not to the west. Another thought it was a
cargo of priests, going from Corsica to Rome; but she was told that
priests were not in sufficient favor just then in France, to get a
vessel so obviously superior to the ordinary craft of the Mediterranean,
to carry them about. While a third, more imaginative than either,
ventured to doubt whether it was a vessel at all; deceptive appearances
of this sort not being of rare occurrence, and usually taking the aspect
of something out of the ordinary way.