the hotel.

Martha was sulky and comatose on this very warm morning; she took
no interest in sculpture. "Them naked creatures," she called any
masterpiece undraped--and she resented being dragged out by Miss
Stella, who always had fancies for art.

They walked round the cloisters first, a voyage of discovery to
Miss Rawson, who looked a slim enough nymph herself in her lilac
cambric frock and demure gray hat shading her big brown eyes.

Then suddenly, from across the garden in the center, she became
aware that an archaic Apollo clad in modern dress had entered upon
the scene, and the blood rushed to her cheeks, and her heart beat.

Martha puffed with the heat and exercise, and glanced with longing
eyes at a comfortable stone bench in the shade.

"Would you like to rest here, Martha, you old dear?" Miss Rawson
said. "There is not a creature about, and I will walk round and
join you from the other side."

The Aunt Caroline's elderly maid easily agreed to this. It was
true there did not seem to be anyone adventurous-looking, and Miss
Stella would be more or less under her eye--and she was thoroughly
tired with traveling and what not. So Stella found herself happily
unchaperoned, except by Baedecker, as she strolled on.

The Russian had disappeared from view, the bushes and vases in the
center of the garden plot gave only occasional chances to see