quarter of the city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the
discontent of Lady Louisa, and became discontented herself. For
one ravishing moment Italy appeared. She stood in the Square of
the Annunziata and saw in the living terra-cotta those divine
babies whom no cheap reproduction can ever stale. There they
stood, with their shining limbs bursting from the garments of
charity, and their strong white arms extended against circlets of
heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful;
but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her forward,
declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a
mile.

The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast
begins, or rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot
chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so
typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped,
partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown. But it gave them
strength to drift into another Piazza, large and dusty, on the
farther side of which rose a black-and-white facade of surpassing
ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It was Santa
Croce. The adventure was over.

"Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to
speak to them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they
are going into the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!"

"We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us
their rooms. They were so very kind."

"Look at their figures!" laughed Miss Lavish. "They walk through