universal motor of our actions? I am afraid it is.

I made Betty (such was her name) take a country walk with me, and the
scenery there is so beautiful that no poet nor painter could imagine a
more delicious prospect. Betty spoke Tuscan with English idioms and an
English accent, but her voice was so silvery and clear that her Italian
was delightful to listen to. I longed to kiss her lips as they spoke so
sweetly, but I respected her and restrained myself.

We were walking along engaged in agreeable converse, when all at once we
heard the church bells peal out. Betty said she had never seen a Catholic
service, and I was glad to give her that pleasure. It was the feast day
of some local saint, and Betty assisted at high mass with all propriety,
imitating the gestures of the people, so that no one would have taken her
for a Protestant. After it was over, she said she thought the Catholic
rite was much more adapted to the needs of loving souls than the
Angelican. She was astonished at the southern beauty of the village
girls, whom she pronounced to be much handsomer that the country lasses
in England. She asked me the time, and I replied without thinking that I
wondered she had not got a watch. She blushed and said the count had
asked her to give it him to leave in pawn for the horse he hired.

I was sorry for what I had said, for I had put Betty, who was incapable
of a lie, to great pain.

We started at ten o'clock with three horses, and as a cool wind was
blowing we had a pleasant drive, arriving at Radicofani at noon.

The landlord, who was also the postmaster, asked if I would pay three
pauls which the Frenchman had expended for his horse and himself,