We went out by our own door into the garden, and passing through a gate
in the wall, entered the village.

After the caution which the nurse had given me, it was impossible to ask
any questions, except at the risk of making mischief in our little
household, on the first day of my joining it. I kept my eyes wide open,
and waited for events. I also committed a blunder at starting--I offered
Lucilla my hand to lead her. She burst out laughing.

"My dear Madame Pratolungo! I know my way better than you do. I roam all
over the neighborhood, with nothing to help me but this."

She held up a smart ivory walking-cane, with a bright silk tassel
attached. With her cane in one hand, and her chemical bottle in the
other--and her roguish little hat on the top of her head--she made the
quaintest and prettiest picture I had seen for many a long day. "_You_
shall guide _me_, my dear," I said--and took her arm. We went on down the
village.

Nothing in the least like a mysterious figure passed us in the twilight.
The few scattered laboring people, whom I had already seen, I saw
again--and that was all. Lucilla was silent--suspiciously silent as I
thought, after what Zillah had told me. She had, as I fancied, the look
of a person who was listening intently. Arrived at the cottage of the
rheumatic woman, she stopped and went in, while I waited outside. The
affair of the embrocation was soon over. She was out again in a
minute--and this time, she took my arm of her own accord.

"Shall we go a little farther?" she said. "It is so nice and cool at this
hour of the evening."