how--consider well upon this--how does it happen that the young woman
speaks English? Mysterious, indeed!"

He rose, and bowed, with ceremony.

"But we burn daylight. I must not detain you longer. Suffer me to
imprint upon your hand of velvet a token of my high regard."

And taking Annunziata's frail little white hand, he bent low to kiss it;
and though his blue eyes were full of laughter, I think that behind the
laughter there was a great deal of real fondness and admiration.




IV


Half-way down the long straight avenue of ilex-trees that led from the
castle to the principal entrance of the garden, Annunziata, in her
pale-grey pinafore (that was so like a peplum), with her hair waving
about her shoulders, was curled up in the corner of a marble bench,
gazing with great intentness at a white flower that lay in her lap. It
was the warmest and the peacefullest moment of the afternoon. The sun
shone steadily; not a leaf stirred, not a shadow wavered; and the
intermittent piping of a blackbird, somewhere in the green world
overhead, seemed merely to give a kind of joyous rhythm to the silence.

"Mercy upon me! Who ever saw so young a maiden so deeply lost in
thought!" exclaimed a voice.