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MISS MEREDITH. 
 
MISS MEREDITH 
 
 AMY LEVY, 
 
 Author of "A Minor Poet," " Reuben Sachs,'' etc. 
 
 HODDE1 AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 X!-, -PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIX. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/missmeredithOOIevy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 l'AGE 
 
 A FAMILY OF FOUR 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 A GREAT EVENT . . , . . I 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES . . • 2 7 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE NEW COVERNESS AND HER PUPIL . . 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MAKING FRIENDS ...... 45 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 COSTANZA MARCHETTI 5- 
 
O CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF THE REBEL . . . 6l 
 
 CHATTER VIII. 
 AN ITALIAN BALL . . . . . 70 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 "WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?" . . . 84 
 
 CHArTER X. 
 " AS GOOD AS GOLD " 89 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 "WILL YOU MAKE ME VERY HAPPY?" . . 98 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE BREAKING OF THE STORM . . ,104 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A SKILFUL DIPLOMATIST . . . . . IIO 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 RELEASED FROM HER VOW . . . , Iljf 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 A FAMILY OF FOUR. 
 
 It was about a week after Christmas, and we — my 
 mother, my two sisters, and myself — were sitting, as 
 usual, in the parlour of the little house at Islington. 
 Tea was over, and Jenny had possession of the 
 table, where she was engaged in making a water- 
 colour sketch of still life by the light of the lamp, 
 whose rays fell effectively on her bent head with its 
 aureole of Titian-coloured hair — the delight of the 
 Slade school — and on her round, earnest young face 
 as she lifted it from time to time in contemplation 
 of her subject. 
 
 My mother had drawn her chair close to the fire, 
 for the night was very cold, and the fitful crimson 
 beams played about her worn, serene, and gentle face, 
 under its widow's cap, as she bent over the sewing in 
 her hands. 
 
 A hard fight with fortune had been my mother's 
 
8 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 from the day when, a girl of eighteen, she had left 
 a comfortable home to marry my father for love. 
 Poverty and sickness — those two redoubtable dragons 
 —had stood ever in the path. Now, even the love 
 which had been by her side for so many years, and 
 helped to comfort them, had vanished into the un- 
 known. But I do not think she was unhappy. The 
 crown of a woman's life was hers ; her children rose 
 up and called her blest. 
 
 At her feet sat my eldest sister, Rosalind, entirely 
 absorbed in correcting a bundle of proof-sheets which 
 had arrived that morning from Temple Bar. Rosalind 
 was the genius of the family, a full-blown London B.A., 
 who occasionally supplemented her earnings as coach 
 and lecturer by writing for the magazines. She had 
 been engaged, moreover, for the last year or two, to 
 a clever young journalist, Hubert Andrews by name, 
 and the lovers were beginning to look forward to a 
 speedy termination to their period of waiting. 
 
 I, Elsie Meredith, who was neither literary nor 
 artistic, neither picturesque like Jenny nor clever like 
 Rosalind, whose middle place in the family had 
 always struck me as a fit symbol of my own medio- 
 crity—I, alone of all these busy people, was sitting 
 idle. Lounging in the arm-chair which faced my 
 
A FAMILY OF FOUR. 9 
 
 mother's, I twisted and retwisted, rolled and unrolled, 
 read and reread a letter which had arrived for me 
 that morning, and whose contents I had been engaged 
 in revolving in my mind throughout the day. 
 
 " Well, Elsie," said my mother at last, looking up 
 with a smile from her work, " have you come to any 
 decision, after all this hard thinking ? " 
 
 " I suppose it will be ' Yes,' " I answered rather 
 dolefully ; " Mrs. Gray seems to think it a quite 
 unusual opportunity." And I turned again to the 
 letter, which contained an offer of an engagement for 
 me as governess in the family of the Marchesa Brogi, 
 at Pisa. 
 
 "I should certainly say 'Go,'" put in Rosalind, 
 lifting her dark expressive face from her proofs ; " if it 
 were not for Hubert I should almost feel inclined to 
 go myself. You will gain all sorts of experience, 
 receive all sorts of new impressions. You are 
 shockingly ill-paid at Miss Cumberland's, and these 
 people offer a very fair salary. And if you don't like 
 it, it is always open to you to come back." 
 
 " We should all miss you very much, Elsie," added 
 my mother ; " but if it is for your good, why, there is 
 no more to be said." 
 
 " Oh, of course we should miss her horribly," 
 
10 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 cried Rosalind, in her impetuous fashion, gathering 
 together the scattered proof-sheets as she spoke; 
 " you mustn't think we want to get rid of you." And 
 the little thoughtful pucker between her straight brows 
 disappeared as she laid her hand with a smile on my 
 knee. I pressed the inky, characteristic fingers in my 
 own. I am neither literary nor artistic, as I said 
 before, but I have a little talent for being fond of 
 people. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know what I shall do without 
 you," put in Jenny, in her deliberate, serious way, 
 making round, grey eyes at me across the lamplight. 
 "It isn't that you are such a good critic, Elsie, but 
 you have a sort of feeling for art which helps one 
 more than you have any idea of." 
 
 I received very meekly this qualified compliment, 
 without revealing the humiliating fact that my feeling 
 for art had probably less to do with the matter than 
 my sympathy with the artist; then observed, "It 
 seems much waste, for me, of all of us, to be the 
 first to go to Italy." 
 
 " I would rather go to Paris," said Jenny, who 
 belonged, at this stage of her career, to a very 
 advanced school of aesthetics, and looked upon 
 Raphael as rather out of date. " If only some one 
 
A FAMILY OF FOUR. II 
 
 would buy my picture I would have a year at Julian's ; 
 it would be the making of me.'' 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Jenny, don't take yourself so 
 seriously," cried Rosalind, rising and laying down her 
 proofs; "one day, perhaps, I shall come across an 
 art-student with a sense of humour — growing side by 
 side with a blue rose. Now, Elsie," she went on, 
 turning to me as Jenny, with a reproachful air cf 
 superior virtue, lifted up her paint-brush, and, shutting 
 one eye, returned in silence to her measurements — 
 "now, Elsie, let us have further details of this 
 proposed expedition of yours. How many little 
 Brogi shall you be required to teach ? " 
 
 " There is only one pupil, and she is eighteen," I 
 answered; "just three years younger than I." 
 
 " And you are to instruct her in all the 'ologies ? " 
 
 Rosalind had taken a chair at the table, and, her 
 head resting on her hand, was interrogating me in her 
 quick, eager, half-ironical fashion. 
 
 "No; Mrs. Grey only says English and music. 
 She says, too, that they are one of the principal 
 families of Pisa. And they live in a palace," I added, 
 with a certain satisfaction. 
 
 " It sounds quite too delightful and romantic ; if it 
 were not for Hubert, as I said before, I should insist 
 
12 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 on going myself. Pisa, the Leaning Tower, Shelley — 
 a Marchesa in an old, ancestral palace ! " And 
 Rosalind's dark eyes shone as she spoke. 
 
 "Ruskin says that the Leaning Tower is the only 
 ugly one in Italy," said Jenny, not moving her eyes 
 from the Japanese pot, cleft orange, and coral neck- 
 lace which she was painting. 
 
 "But the cathedral is one of the most beautiful, and 
 the place is a mine of historical associations," an- 
 swered Rosalind, her ardour not in the least damped 
 by this piece of information. 
 
 As for me, I sat silent between these two enthu- 
 siasts with an abashed consciousness of the limitations 
 of my own subjective feminine nature. It was neither 
 the beauties or defects of Pisan architecture which at 
 present occupied my mind, nor even the historical 
 associations of the town. My thoughts dwelt solely, 
 it must be owned, on the probable character of the 
 human beings among whom I was to be thrown. But 
 then it was I who was going to Pisa, and not my sisters. 
 
 " Does Mrs. Grey know the Marchesa Brogi per- 
 sonally?" asked my mother, who also was disposed 
 to take the less abstract view of the matter. 
 
 " Oh, no, it is all arranged through the friend of a 
 friend." 
 
A FAMILY OF FOUR. *3 
 
 " I don't like the idea of your going so far, alone 
 among strangers," sighed mother; "but, on the other 
 hand, a change is just what you want." 
 
 " What a pity Hubert is not here to-night — that 
 horrid premiere at the Lyceum ! We must lay the 
 plan before him to-morrow," struck in Rosalind, who, 
 hopeless blue-stocking as she was, consulted her 
 oracle with all the faith of a woman who barely knows 
 how to spell. 
 
 I went over to my mother and took the stool at 
 her feet which my sister had just vacated. 
 
 "It's going to be 'Yes,' mother; I have felt it all 
 along." 
 
 " My dear, I won't be the one to keep you back. 
 But need you make up your mind so soon ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Grey says that the sooner I can leave the 
 better. They would like me to start in a week or 
 ten day?," I answered, suppressing as best I could all 
 signs of the feeling of desolation that came over me 
 at the sound of my own words. 
 
 " You will have to get clothes," cried Rosalind ; 
 " those little mouse-coloured garments of yours will 
 never do for ancestral palaces." 
 
 " Oh, with some new boots and an ulster — I'm 
 afraid I must have an ulster — I shall be quite set up." 
 
14 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 " You would pay very well for good dressing," 
 observed Jenny, contemplating me with her air of 
 impartial criticism. " You have a nice figure, and a 
 pretty head, and you know how to walk." 
 
 " ' Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley,' !' replied 
 Rosalind with some irony. " My dear Elsie, I have 
 seen it in your eyes — they are highly respectable eyes, 
 by the bye — I have seen it in your eyes from the first 
 moment the letter came, that you meant to go. It is 
 you quiet women who have all the courage, if you 
 will excuse a truism." 
 
 "Well, yes, perhaps I did feel like going from the 
 first." 
 
 '■' And, now that is decided, let me tell you, Elsie, 
 that I perfectly hate the idea of losing you," cried 
 Rosalind with sudden abruptness ; then, changing 
 her tone, she went on — " for who knows how or when 
 we shall have you back again ? You will descend 
 upon that palazzo resplendent in the new boots and 
 the new ulster ; the combined radiance of those two 
 adornments will be too much for some Italian Mr. 
 Rochester who, of course, will be lurking about the 
 damask-hung corridors with their painted ceilings. 
 Jane Eyre will be retained as a fixture, and her native 
 land shall know her no more." 
 
A FAMILY OF FOUR. 15 
 
 '' You forget that Jane Eyre would have some voice 
 in the matter. And I have always considered Mr. 
 Rochester the most unpleasant person that ever a 
 woman made herself miserable over," I answered 
 calmly enough, for I was accustomed to these little 
 excursions into the realms of fancy on the part of my 
 sister. 
 
 "I think there's a little stone, Elsie, where the heart 
 ought to be," and Rosalind, bending forward, poked 
 her finger, with unscientific vagueness, at the left side 
 of my waist. 
 
 " ' Men have died and worms have eaten them, but 
 not for love,' " I quoted, while there flashed across 
 my mind a vision of Rosalind sobbing helplessly on 
 the floor a month before Hubert proposed to her. 
 
 " Men ; it doesn't say anything about women," 
 answered Rosalind, thoughtfully flying off, as usual, 
 at a tangent. 
 
 " Is it woman's mission to die of a broken heart? '' 
 I could not resist saying, for there had been some 
 very confidential passages between us, once upon a 
 time. " The headache is too noble for my sex ; you 
 think the heartache would sound pleasanter." 
 
 " Elsie talking women's rights ! " cried Jenny, look- 
 ing up astonished from her work. 
 
l6 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 " Yes ; the effects of a daring and adventurous 
 enterprise are beginning to tell upon her in advance." 
 
 " We have wandered a long way from Pisa," I 
 said ; " but that is the worst of engaged people. What- 
 ever the conversation is, they manage to turn it into 
 sentimental channels." 
 
 " I sentimental ! " cried Rosalind, opening wide 
 her eyes ; "I, who unite in my own person the charms 
 of Cornelia Blimber and Mrs. Jellaby, to be accused 
 of sentiment ! " 
 
 I lay awake that night on my little iron bed long 
 after Rosalind was sleeping the sleep of happy labour. 
 I was a coward at heart, though I had contrived to 
 show a brave front to my little world. 
 
 At the thought of that coming plunge into the un- 
 known, my spirit grew frozen within me, and I began 
 to wish that the fateful letter from Mrs. Grey had 
 never been written. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GREAT EVENT. 
 
 About ten days after the conversation recorded in the 
 last chapter, I was driving down to Victoria station 
 in a four-wheel cab, wearing the new ulster, the new 
 boots, and holding on my knee a brand-new travelling- 
 bag. It was a colourless London morning, neither 
 hot nor cold, but as I looked out with rather dim eyes 
 through the dirty windows, I experienced no pleasure 
 at the thought of exchanging for Italian skies this 
 dear, familiar greyness. At my side sat my mother, 
 silent and pale. Now that we two were alone to- 
 gether — my busy sisters had been at work some hours 
 ago — we had abandoned the rather strained and feverish 
 gaiety which had prevailed that morning at breakfast. 
 " Now, Elsie, keep warm at night ; don't forget 
 to eat plenty of Brand's essence of beef — it's the 
 brown parcel, not the white one — and write directly 
 you arrive." 
 
 3 
 
l8 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 Between us we had succeeded in taking my ticket 
 and registering the luggage, and now my mother stood 
 at the door of the carriage, exchanging with me those 
 last farewells which always seem so much too long 
 and so much too short. 
 
 It must be owned, this journey of mine bore to us 
 both the aspect of a great event. We had always 
 been poor, most of our friends were poor, and we 
 were not familiarized with the easy modern notions of 
 travel, which make nothing of a visit to the North 
 Pole, or a little trip to China by way of Peru. And 
 as the train steamed out at last from the station my 
 heart sank suddenly within me, and I could scarcely 
 see the black-clothed familiar figure on the platform, 
 for the tears which sprang to my eyes blinded me. 
 
 My first new experience was not a pleasant one, and 
 as I lay moaning with sickness in a second-class cabin, 
 I wondered how I or any one else could ever have 
 complained of anything while we stood on terra firma. 
 All past worries and sorrows faded momentarily into 
 nothingness before this present all- engulfing evil. It 
 seemed an age before we reached Calais, where, limp, 
 bewildered, and miserable, I was jostled into a crowded 
 second-class carriage en route for Basle. The train 
 jolted and shook, and I grew more and more unhappy, 
 
A GREAT EVENT. IQ 
 
 mentally and physically, with every minute. My 
 fellow-passengers,' a sorry, battered-looking assortment 
 of women, produced large untempting supplies of 
 food from their travelling-bags, and fell to with good 
 appetite. I myself, after some hesitation, sought 
 consolation in the little tin of Brand's essence ; after 
 which, squeezed in between the window and a per- 
 fectly unclassifiable specimen of Englishwoman, I fell 
 asleep. 
 
 When I awoke it was broad daylight, and the train 
 was gliding slowly into the station at Basle. 
 
 I was stiff, cramped, and dishevelled, but yesterday's 
 depression had given place to a new, delicious feeling 
 of excitement. The porters hurrying to and fro, and 
 shouting in their guttural Swiss-German, the people 
 standing on the platform, the unfamiliar advertise- 
 ments and announcements posted and painted about 
 the station, all appeared to me objects of surpassing 
 interest. The glamour of strangeness lay over all. 
 A keen exhilarating morning breeze blew from the 
 mountains, and as I stepped on to the platform it 
 seemed as if I trod on air. With a feeling of ad- 
 venture, which I firmly believe Columbus himself 
 could never have experienced more keenly, I made 
 my way into the crowded refreshment-room, and 
 
20 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 ordered breakfast. I was very hungry, and thought 
 that I had never tasted anything better than the 
 coffee and rolls, the shavings of white butter, and the 
 adulterated honey in its litttle glass pot. As I sat there 
 contentedly I found it difficult to realize that less than 
 twenty-four hours separated me from the familiar life 
 at Islington. It seemed incredible that so short a 
 space of time had sufficed to land me on this strange 
 sea of new experiences, into this dream-like, dis- 
 organized life, where night was scarcely divided from 
 day, and the common incident of a morning meal 
 could induce, of itself, a dozen new sensations. The 
 rest of that day was unmixed delight. I scarcely 
 moved my eyes from the window as the train sped on 
 through the St. Gothard pass into Italy. What a 
 wondrous panorama unrolled itself before me ! 
 
 First, the mysterious, silent world of mountains, all 
 black and white, like a photograph, with here and 
 there the still, green waters of a mighty lake ; the 
 gentler scenes — trees, meadows, villages ; last of all, 
 the wide, blue waters of the Italian lakes, with their 
 fringe of purple hills, and the little white villas clustered 
 round them, and the red, red sunset reflected on their 
 surfaces. 
 
 The train was late, and I missed the express at 
 
A GREAT EVENT. 21 
 
 Genoa, passing several desolate hours in the great 
 deserted station.. It was not till eleven o'clock the 
 next morning that a tired, dishevelled, and decidedly 
 dirty young woman found herself standing on the 
 platform at Pisa, her travelling rug trailing ignomini- 
 ously behind her as she held out her luggage check in 
 dumb entreaty to a succession of unresponsive porters. 
 
 The pleasant excitement of yesterday had faded, 
 and I was conscious of being exceedingly tired and 
 rather forlorn. Here was no exhilarating mountain 
 air, but a damp breeze, at once chilly and enervating, 
 made me shiver where I stood. 
 
 I succeeded at last, in spite of a complete absence 
 of Italian, in conveying myself and my luggage into 
 a fly, and in directing the driver to the Palazzo Brogi. 
 As we jolted along slowly enough, I looked out, 
 expecting every minute to seen the Leaning Tower ; 
 but I saw only tall, grey streets, narrow and often 
 without sidewalks, in which a sparse but picturesque 
 population was moving to and fro. But I was roused, 
 tired as I was, to considerable interest as we crossed 
 the bridge, and my eye took in the full sweep of the 
 river, with the noble curve of palaces along its bank, 
 the distant mountains, beautiful in the sunshine, and 
 the clear and delicate light which lay over all. 
 
22 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 I had not long, however, to observe these things, 
 for in another minute the drosky had stopped before 
 a great square house in grey stone, with massive iron 
 scrolls guarding the lower windows, and the driver, 
 coming to the door, announced that this was the 
 Palazzo Brogi. 
 
 My heart sank as I dismounted, and going up the 
 steps, pulled timidly at the bell. The great door was 
 standing open, and I could see beyond into a gloomy 
 and cavernous vista of corridors. 
 
 No one answered the bell, but just as I was about 
 to pull for the second time a gentleman, dressed in a 
 grey morning suit a r anglais, strolled out inquiringly 
 into the passage. He was rather stout, of middle 
 height, with black hair parted in the middle, and a 
 pale, good-looking face. The fact that no one had 
 answered the bell seemed neither to disconcert nor 
 surprise him ; he called out a few words in Italian, 
 and, advancing towards me, bowed with charming 
 courtesy. 
 
 " You are Miss Meredith," he said, speaking in 
 English, slowly, with difficulty, but in the softest voice 
 in the world ; " my mother did not expect you by the 
 early train." Here his English seemed to break down 
 suddenly, and he looked at me a moment with his dark 
 
A GREAT EVENT. 23 
 
 and gentle eyes. There was something reassuring in his 
 serious, simple dignity of manner ; I forgot my fears, 
 forgot also the fact that I was as black as a coal, and 
 had lost nearly all my hair-pins, and said, composedly, 
 " I missed the express from Genoa. The train across 
 the St. Gothard was late." 
 
 At this point there emerged from the shadowy 
 region at the back a servant in livery, who very de- 
 liberately, and without explanation of his tardiness, 
 proceeded to help the driver in carrying my box into 
 the hall. 
 
 The gentleman bowed himself away, and in another 
 moment I was following the servant up a vast and 
 interminable flight of stone stairs. 
 
 The vaulted roof rose high above us, half lost to 
 sight in shadow; everywhere were glimpses of galleries 
 and corridors, and over everything hung that inde- 
 scribable atmosphere of chill stuffiness which I have 
 since learned to connect with Italian palaces. 
 
 Anything less homelike, less suggestive of a place 
 where ordinary human beings carried on the daily, 
 pleasant avocations of life, it would be impossible to 
 conceive. A stifling sensation rose in my throat as we 
 passed through a folding glass-door, across a dim 
 corridor, into a large room, where my guide left me 
 
24 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 with a remark which of course I did not understand. 
 With a sense of unutterable relief I perceived the room 
 to be empty, and I sat down on a yellow damask sofa, 
 feeling an ignominious desire to cry. The shutters 
 were closed before the great windows, but through the 
 gloom I could see that the place was furnished very 
 stiffly with yellow damask furniture, while enormous 
 and elaborate chests and writing-tables filled up the 
 corners. A big chandelier shrouded in yellow muslin 
 hung from the ceiling, which rose to a great height, 
 and was painted in fresco. There was no fire, and I 
 looked at the empty gilt stove, which had neither bars 
 nor fire-irons, with a shiver. 
 
 It was not long before an inner door was thrown 
 open to admit two ladies, who came towards me with 
 greetings in French. The Marchesa Brogi was a small, 
 vivacious, dried-up woman of middle age, with an 
 evident sense of her own dignity, looking very cold 
 and carrying a little muff in her hands. 
 
 She curtseyed slightly as we shook hands, then 
 motioned me to a seat beside her on the sofa. "This 
 is my daughter Bianca," she said, turning to the girl 
 who had followed her into the room. 
 
 I looked anxiously at my pupil, whose aspect was 
 not altogether reassuring. She was a tall, pale, high- 
 
A GREAT EVENT. 25 
 
 shouldered young person, elaborately dressed, with a 
 figure so artificially bolstered up that only by a great 
 stretch of imagination could one realize that she was 
 probably built on average anatomical lines. Her hair, 
 dressed on the top of her head and struck through 
 with tortoiseshell combs, produced by its unnatural 
 neatness the same effect of unreality. She was de- 
 cidedly plain withal, and her manners struck me as 
 being inferior to those of her mother and brother. 
 She took up her seat at some little distance from the 
 sofa, and whenever I glanced in her direction, I saw 
 a pair of sharp eyes fixed on my face, with something 
 of the unsparing criticism of a hostile child in their 
 gaze. 
 
 I began to be terribly conscious of my disordered 
 appearance — I am not one of those people who can 
 afford to affect the tempestuous petticoat — and grew 
 more and more bewildered in my efforts to follow the 
 little Marchesa through the mazes of her fluent but 
 curiously accentuated French. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief that I saw one of the 
 inner doors open, and a stout, good-tempered looking 
 lady, in a loose morning jacket, come smiling into the 
 room. She shook hands with me cordially, and taking 
 a chair opposite the sofa, began to nod and smile in 
 
26 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 the most reassuring fashion. She spoke no English 
 and very little French, but was determined that so 
 slight an obstacle should not stand in the way of 
 pressing her goodwill towards me. 
 
 I began to like this fat, silly lady, who showed her 
 gums so unbecomingly when she smiled, and to 
 wonder at her position in the household. 
 
 The door opened yet again, and in came my first 
 acquaintance, the gentleman in the grey suit. 
 
 I was growing more and more confused with each 
 fresh arrival, and dimly wondered how long it would 
 be before I fell off the hard yellow sofa from sheer 
 weariness. The strange faces surged before me, an 
 indistinguishable mass ; the strange voices reached me, 
 meaningless and incoherent, through a thick veil. 
 
 "She is very tired," someone said in French; and 
 not long after this I was led across half a dozen rooms 
 to a great bedroom, where, without taking in any 
 details of my surroundings, I undressed, went to bed, 
 and fell asleep till the next morning. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 When I awoke the sun was streaming in through the 
 chinks of the shutters, and a servant was standing at 
 my bedside with a cup of coffee and some rolls. But 
 I felt no disposition to attack my breakfast, and lay 
 still, with a dreamy sensation as my eyes wandered 
 round the unfamiliar room. 
 
 I saw a great, dim chamber, with a painted ceiling 
 rising sky-high above me ; plaster walls, coarsely sten- 
 cilled in arabesques ; a red-tiled floor, strewn here and 
 there with squares of carpet ; a few old and massive 
 pieces of furniture, and not the vestige of a stove. 
 The bed on which I lay was a vast four-post structure, 
 mountains high, with a baldaquin in faded crimson 
 damask, and was reflected, rather libellously, in a 
 glass-front of a wardrobe opposite. 
 
 " I shall never, never feel that it is a normal, human 
 bedroom," I thought, appalled by the gloomy state of 
 
28 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 my surroundings. Then I drank my coffee, and, 
 climbing out of bed, went across to the window, and 
 unshuttered it. 
 
 An exclamation of pleasure rose to my lips at the 
 sight which greeted me. 
 
 Below flowed the full waters of the Arno, spanned 
 by a massive bridge of shining white marble, and re- 
 flecting on its waves the bluest of blue heavens. A 
 brilliant and delicate sunshine was shed over all, 
 bringing out the lights and shades, the differences of 
 tint and surface, of the tall old house on the opposite 
 bank, and falling on the minute spires of a white 
 marble church perched at the very edge of the stream. 
 
 The sight of this toy-like structure — surely the 
 smallest and daintiest place of worship in the world — 
 served to deepen the sense of unreality which was 
 hourly gaining hold upon me. 
 
 " I wonder where the Leaning Tower is," I thought, 
 as I hastily drew on my stockings, for standing about 
 on the red-tiled floor had made me very cold, in spite 
 of the sunshine flooding in through the windows ; 
 " what would they say at home if they heard I had 
 been twenty-four hours in Pisa without so much as 
 seeing it in the distance." 
 
 But I did not allow myself to think of home, and 
 
NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 29 
 
 devoted my energies to bringing myself up to the high 
 standard of neatness which would certainly be expected 
 of me. 
 
 I found the ladies sitting together in a large and 
 cold apartment, which was more homelike than the 
 yellow room of yesterday, inasmuch as its bareness was 
 relieved by a variety of modern ornaments, photo- 
 graph-frames, and other trifles, all as hideous as your 
 latter-day Italian loves to make them. They greeted 
 me with ceremony, making many polite inquiries as to 
 my health and comfort, and invited me to sit down. 
 The room was very cold, in spite of the morning sun, 
 whose light, moreover, was intercepted by Venetian 
 blinds. The chilly little Marchesa had her hands in 
 her muff, while her daughter warmed hers over a 
 scaldino, a small earthern pot filled with hot wood 
 ashes, which she held in her lap. 
 
 The amiable lady in the dressing-jacket was evi- 
 dently a more warm-blooded creature, for she stitched 
 on, undaunted by the cold, at a large and elaborate 
 piece of embroidery, taking her part meanwhile in the 
 ceaseless and rapid flow of chatter. 
 
 It was rather a shock to me to gather that she was 
 the wife of the charming son of the house ; to whom, 
 moreover, a fresh charm was added, when it came out 
 
30 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 that his name was Romeo. I had put her down for a 
 woman of middle age, but I learned subsequently that 
 she was only twenty-eight years old, and had brought 
 her husband a very handsome dowry. The pair were 
 childless after several years of marriage, and they lived 
 permanently at the Palazzo Brogi, according to the 
 old patriarchal Italian custom, which, like most old 
 customs, is dying out. 
 
 I sat there, stupidly wondering if I should ever be 
 able to understand Italian, replying lamely enough to 
 the remarks in French which were thrown out to me at 
 decent intervals, and encountering every now and then 
 with some alarm the suspicious glances of the Sig- 
 norina Bianca. 
 
 Once the kind Marchesina Annunziata — Romeo's 
 wife — drew my attention with simple pride to a leather 
 chair embroidered with gold, her own handiwork, as 
 I managed to make out. 
 
 I smiled and nodded the proper amount of admira- 
 tion, and wished secretly that my feet were not so cold, 
 for the tiled floor struck chill through the carpet. 
 Bianca offered me a scaldino presently, and the 
 Marchesa explained that she wished the English 
 lessons to begin on the following day. After that I sat 
 there in almost unbroken silence till twelve o'clock, 
 
NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 31 
 
 when the casual man-servant strolled in and announced 
 that lunch was ready. 
 
 The dining-room, a large and stony apartment with 
 a vaulted roof, was situated on the ground-floor, and 
 here we found the Marchesino Romeo and the old 
 Marchese, to whom I was introduced. The meal was 
 slight but excellently cooked ; and the sweet Tuscan 
 wine I found delicious. Romeo, who sat next to me, 
 and attended to my wants with his air of gentle and 
 serious courtesy, addressed a few remarks to me in 
 English and then subsided into a graceful silence, 
 leaving the conversation entirely in the hands of his 
 womenkind. 
 
 After lunch, a drive and round of calls was proposed 
 by the ladies, who invited me to join them. The 
 thought of being shut up in a carriage with these 
 three strange women, all speaking their unknown 
 tongue, was too much for me, and gathering courage, 
 the courage of desperation, I announced that unless 
 my services were required I should prefer to go for a 
 walk. 
 
 The ladies looked at me, and then at one another, 
 and the good-natured Annunziata burst into a laugh. 
 " It is an English custom," she explained. " You 
 must not go beyond the city walls, Miss Meredith, 
 
32 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 not even into the Casine; it would not be safe,'' said 
 the Marchesa ; while Bianca looked scrutinizingly at 
 my square, low-heeled shoes which contrasted sharply 
 with her own. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief, some twenty minutes 
 later, that, peeping from the window of my room, I 
 saw them all drive off, elaborately apparelled, in a 
 closed carriage ; Romeo, bareheaded, speeding them 
 from the steps. 
 
 Then I sat down and wrote off an unnaturally 
 cheerful letter to the people at home, only pausing 
 now and then when the tears rose to my eyes and 
 blurred my sight. 
 
 " I hope I haven't overdone it," I thought, as I 
 addressed the envelope and proceeded to dress. "I'm 
 not sure that there isn't a slightly inebriated tone 
 about the whole thing, and mother is so quick at 
 reading between the lines." 
 
 I passed across the corridor and down the stair to 
 the first landing, where I lingered a moment. A 
 covered gallery ran along the back of the house, and 
 through the tall and dingy windows I could see a 
 surging, unequal mass of old red roofs. 
 
 "How Jenny would love it all," I thought, as I 
 turned away with a sigh. 
 
NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 33 
 
 As I reached the street door, Romeo emerged from 
 that mysterious retreat of his on the ground-floor, 
 where he appeared to pass his time in some solitary 
 pursuit, looked at me, bowed, and withdrew. 
 
 t: At last!" I cried, inwardly, as I sped down the 
 steps. At last I could breathe again, at last I was out 
 in the sunlight and in the wind, away from the musty 
 chilliness, the lurking shadows of that stifling palace. 
 Oh, the joy of freedom and of solitude ! Was it only 
 hours? Surely it must be years that I had been 
 imprisoned behind those thick old walls and iron 
 guarded windows. On, on I went with rapid toot in 
 the teeth of the biting wind and the glare of the 
 scorching sunlight, scarcely noticing my surroundings 
 in the first rapture of recovered freedom. But by 
 degrees the strangeness, the beauty of what' I saw, 
 began to assert themselves. 
 
 I had turned off from the Lung' Arno, and was 
 threading my way among the old and half-deserted 
 streets which led to the cathedral. 
 
 What a dead, world-forgotten place, and yet how 
 beautiful in its desolation ! Everywhere were signs of 
 a present poverty, everywhere of a past magnificence. 
 
 The men with their sombreros and cloaks worn 
 toga fashion ; their handsome, melancholy faces and 
 3 
 
34 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 stately gait; the women bareheaded, graceful, drawing 
 water from the fountain into copper vessels, moved 
 before me like figures from an old-world drama. 
 
 Here and there was a little, empty piazza, the tall 
 houses abutting on it at different angles, without 
 sidewalks, the grass growing up between the stones. 
 It seemed only waiting for first gentleman and second 
 gentleman to come forward and carry on their dialogue 
 while the great " set'' was being prepared at the back 
 of the stage. 
 
 The old walls, roughly patched with modern brick 
 and mortar, had bits of exquisite carving imbedded in 
 them like fossils ; and at every street corner the house 
 leek sprang from the interstices of a richly wrought 
 moulding. A great palace, with a wonderful facade, 
 had been turned into a wineshop ; and the chestnut- 
 sellers dispensed their wares in little gloomy caverns 
 hollowed out beneath the abodes of princes. Already 
 the nameless charm of Italy was beginning to work on 
 me ; that magic spell from which — let us once come 
 under its influence — we can never hope to be released. 
 
 A long and straggling street led me at last to the 
 Piazzi del Duomo, and here for a moment I paused 
 breathless, regardless of the icy blast which swept 
 across from the sea. 
 
NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 35 
 
 I thought then, and I think still, that nowhere in 
 the world is there anything which, in its own way, 
 can equal the picture that greeted my astonished 
 vision. 
 
 The wide and straggling grass-grown piazza, bounded 
 on one side by the city wall, on the other by the low 
 wall of the Campo Santo, with the wind whistling 
 drearily across it, struck me as the very type and 
 symbol of desolation. 
 
 At one end rose the Leaning Tower, pallid, melan- 
 choly, defying the laws of nature in a disappointingly 
 spiritless fashion. Close against it the magnificent 
 bulk of the cathedral reared itself, a marvel of mellow 
 tints, of splendid outline, and richly modelled surfaces. 
 And, divided from this by a strip of rank grass, up 
 sprang the little quaint baptistery, with its extraordinary 
 air of freshness and of fantastic gaiety, looking as 
 though it had been turned out of a mould the day 
 before yesterday. 
 
 Such richness, such forlornness, struck curiously 
 on the sense. It was as though, wandering along 
 some solitary shore, one had found a heaped treasure 
 glittering undisturbed on the open sand. 
 
 I strolled for some time spell-bound about the 
 cathedral, not caring to multiply impressions by enter- 
 
36 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 ing, shivering a little in the wind which held a recol- 
 lection of the sea, and was at the same time cold and 
 feverish. By and by, however, I made my way into 
 the Campo Santo, lingering fascinated in those 
 strange sculptured arcades, with the visions of life 
 and death, and hell and heaven, painted on the 
 walls. 
 
 One or two cypresses rose from the little grass-plot 
 in the middle, and in the rank grass the jonquils were 
 already in flower. I plucked a few of these and 
 fastened them in my dress. They had a sweet, 
 peculiar odour, melancholy, enervating. 
 
 The bright light was beginning to fail as I sped 
 back hurriedly through the streets. 
 
 It was Epiphany, and the children were blowing on 
 long glass trumpets. Every now and then the harsh 
 sound echoed through the stony thoroughfare. It fell 
 upon my overwrought senses like a sound of doom. 
 The flowers in my bodice smelt of death ; there was 
 death, I thought, crying out in every old stone of the 
 city. 
 
 The palazzo looked almost like home, and I fled up 
 the dim stairs with a greater feeling of relief than that 
 with which an hour or two ago I had hastened down 
 them. 
 
NEW AND STRANGE EXPERIENCES. 37 
 
 After dinner the Marchesa received her friends in 
 the yellow drawing-room. 
 
 A wood fire was lighted on the flat, open hearth of 
 the stove, and a side table was spread with a few light 
 refreshments — a bottle of Marsala wine, and a round 
 cake covered with bright green sugar, being the most 
 important items. 
 
 About eight o'clock the visitors began to arrive, and 
 in half an hour nine or ten ladies and three or four 
 gentlemen were clustered on the damask sofas, talking 
 at a great rate, and gesticulating in their graceful, eager 
 fashion. Bianca had withdrawn into a corner with a 
 pair of contemporaries, whose long, stiff waists, high- 
 heeled shoes, and elaborately dressed hair, resembled 
 her own. The old Marchese sat apart, silent and 
 contemplative, as was his wont, and Romeo, drawing 
 a chair close to mine, questioned me in his precise, 
 restricted English as to my afternoon walk. 
 
 This parliament of gossip, which, as I afterwards 
 discovered, occurred regularly three times a week, was 
 prolonged till midnight, but, kind Annunziata noticing 
 my tired looks, I was able to make my escape by ten 
 o'clock. 
 
 As I climbed into my bed, worn out by the 
 crowded experiences of the day, there rose before me 
 
38 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 suddenly a vision of the parlour at home ; of mother 
 sewing by the fireside ; of Jenny and Rosalind at work 
 in the lamplight ; of Hubert coming in with the even- 
 ing papers and bits of literary gossip. 
 
 " If they could only see me," I thought, " alone in 
 this unnatural place, with no one to be fond of me, 
 with no one even being aware that I have a Christian 
 name." 
 
 This last touch struck me as so pathetic that the 
 tears began to pour down my face. But the tall bed, 
 with the faded baldaquin, if oppressive to the imagin- 
 ation, was, it must be confessed, exceedingly comfort- 
 able, and it was not long before I forgot my troubles 
 in sleep. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEW GOVERNESS AND HER PUPIL. 
 
 The English lesson next morning proved rather an 
 ordeal. It took place in one of the many sitting-rooms, 
 a large room with an open hearth, on which, however, 
 no fire was lighted. But with a shawl round my 
 shoulders, and a cqpsetta, or brass box filled with live 
 charcoal, for my feet, I managed to keep moderately 
 warm. 
 
 Bianca rather sullenly drew a small collection of 
 reading-books, grammars, and exercise-books, all 
 bearing marks of careless usage, from a cabinet, and 
 placed them on the table. Then drawing a chair 
 opposite mine, she fixed her suspicious, curious eyes 
 on me, and said in French — 
 
 "Have you any sisters, Miss Meredith? " 
 "Ihave two. But wemustspeakEnglish,Marchesina." 
 " I always spoke French with Miss Clarke," 
 answered Bianca. 
 
40 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 Miss Clarke, as I subsequently gathered, was my 
 predecessor, who had recently left the palazzo after a 
 sojourn of eighteen months, and who, to judge by 
 results, must have performed her duties in a singularly 
 perfunctory fashion. 
 
 "Are your sisters married?" Bianca condescended 
 to say in English, looking critically at my grey merino 
 gown, with its banded bodice, and at my hair braided 
 simply round my head. 
 
 " No; but one is engaged." 
 
 " And have you any brothers ? " 
 
 "No ; not one." 
 
 " And I have not one sister, and two brothers, sig- 
 norina," cried Bianca, apparently much struck by the 
 contrast. "It is my brother Andrea who is so anxious 
 for me to learn and to read books, although I am past 
 eighteen. He writes about it to my father, and my 
 father always does what Andrea tells him." 
 
 " Then you must work hard to please your 
 brother," I said, with my most didactic air, examining 
 the well-thumbed English - Italian grammar as I 
 spoke. 
 
 "What is the use, when he has been five years in 
 America? Who knows when I may see him? Ah ! 
 molto indtpendente is Andrea — molto indtyendente J '" 
 
THE NEW GOVERNESS AND HER PUPIL. 41 
 
 And Bianca shook her too-neat head with a sigh of 
 mingled pride and approbation. 
 
 We made a little attack on the grammars and 
 reading-books in the course of the morning, but it was 
 uphill work, and I sat down to the piano, feeling 
 thoroughly disheartened. 
 
 But the music lesson was a great improvement on 
 the English. Bianca had some taste, and considerable 
 power of execution, and we rose from the piano better 
 friends. A short walk before lunch was prescribed by 
 the Marchesa, and soon I was re threading the mazes 
 of the Pisa streets, Bianca hobbling slowly and dis- 
 contentedly at my side on her high heels. 
 
 My pupil's one idea with regard to a walk was shops, 
 and now she announced her intention of buying some 
 torino, the sweet paste of honey and almonds so dear 
 to Italian palates. As we turned into the narrow 
 street, with its old, old houses and stone arcades, 
 where, such as they are, the principal shops of Pisa 
 are to be found, I could not suppress an exclamation 
 of delight at the sight of so much picturesque- 
 ness. 
 
 "Ah," said Bianca, not in the least understanding 
 my enthusiasm; "you should see the shops at Turin, 
 and the great squares, and the glass arcades, and the 
 
42 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 wide streets. I have been there twice. Romeo says 
 it is almost as beautiful as Paris." 
 
 The ladies drove out again after lunch in the closed 
 carriage, and again I set out alone to explore the town. 
 This time I penetrated into the interior of the cathe- 
 dral, spending two happy hours in the dusky richness 
 of the vast building ; lost in admiration, now of the 
 soft rich colour of marble and jasper and painted glass; 
 now of the pictures on walls, roof, and altar ; now of 
 the grandeur of line, the mysterious effects of light 
 and shadow planned by the cunning brain of a long 
 departed master. 
 
 The weather was much milder than on the previous 
 day, and half a dozen tourists, with red guide-books, 
 were making a round of inspection of the buildings on 
 the piazza. 
 
 Two of these I recognized with a thrill to be my 
 own compatriots. They were, to the outward eye, at 
 least, quite uninteresting; a bride and bridegroom, 
 presumably, of the most commonplace type ; but I 
 followed them about the cathedral with a lingering, 
 wistful glance which I am sure, had they been 
 conscious of it, would have melted them to pity. 
 Once, as I was standing before Andrea del Sarto's 
 marvellous St. Catherine, the pair came up behind me. 
 
THE NEW GOVERNESS AND HER PUPIL. 43 
 
 " It's like your sister Nellie," said the man. 
 
 " Nonsense ! Nellie isn't half so fat, and she never 
 did her hair like that in her life. Why, you wouldn't 
 know Nellie without her fringe," answered the woman 
 in a superior way as they moved off to the next object 
 of interest mentioned in Baedecker. 
 
 They were Philistines, no doubt ; but I was in no 
 mood to be critical, and must confess that the sound 
 of their English voices was almost too much for my 
 self-control. 
 
 The ladies went out after dinner, and I was left to 
 the pains and pleasures of a solitary evening, an 
 almost unprecedented experience in my career. The 
 next day was Sunday : the family drove to early mass, 
 and an hour or two later I made my way to the 
 English church, the sparseness of whose congregation 
 gave it rather a forlorn aspect. 
 
 The English colony is small, and consists chiefly of 
 invalids attracted by the mildness of the climate, who 
 at the same time are too poor to seek a more fashion- 
 able health resort. 
 
 They did not, as may be imagined, present a very 
 cheerful aspect, but the sight of them filled me with a 
 passing envy. Mothers and daughters, sisters, friends; 
 every one came in in groups or pairs, with the exception 
 
44 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 of myself; I, the mcst friendless and forlorn of all 
 these exiles. 
 
 The chaplain and his wife called on me after I had 
 sent in my name for a sitting, but there was never 
 much intimacy between us. 
 
 In the evening of this, my first Sunday away from 
 home, the Marchesa again "received," and once more 
 I sat bewildered amid the flood of unintelligible 
 chatter, or exchanged occasional remarks with Bianca, 
 who appeared to have abandoned her suspicions of 
 me, and had taken up her place at my side. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAKING FRIENDS. 
 
 I bought a dictionary and a grammar, and worked 
 hard in my moments of leisure. My daily life, more- 
 over, might be described as an almost unbroken 
 Italian lesson, and it was not long before I began to 
 understand what was said around me, and to express 
 myself more or less haltingly in the language of my 
 land of exile. A means of communication being thus 
 opened up between myself and the Marchesina 
 Annunziata, that open-hearted person began to take 
 me into her confidence, and to pour out for my 
 benefit a dozen little facts and circumstances which I 
 might have lived all my life with the voluble, but 
 reserved, Marchesa without ever having learnt. 
 
 Of Andrea, the absent son, she spoke often. 
 
 " Molto indipendente ! " she said shaking her head, 
 and using the same expression as her young sister-in- 
 law. 
 
46 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 This reprobate, it seemed, flying in the face of 
 family tradition, had announced from the first his 
 intention of earning his own living ; had studied hard 
 and with distinction for a civil engineer, and five years 
 ago, refusing all offers of help, had accepted a post in 
 America. 
 
 As for Romeo, the elder brother, he also, said his 
 wife, was very clever ; had passed his examinations as 
 a barrister. " But, of course," she added, with naive 
 pride, "he would never think of practising." 
 
 Romeo, indeed, to do him justice, was troubled by 
 no disturbing spirit of radicalism, and carried on the 
 ancestral pursuit of doing nothing with a grace and a 
 persistence which one could not help but admire. 
 
 His mother possessed a fine natural aptitude for the 
 same branch of industry; but the old Marchese, whom, 
 though he spoke but little and was seldom seen, I soon 
 perceived to have a character of his own, passed his 
 days in reading and writing in some obscure retreat 
 on the ground-floor. 
 
 Bianca, after suspending her judgment for some 
 days, had apparently given a verdict in my favour, for 
 she now followed me about like a dog, a line of con- 
 duct which, though flattering, had certainly its draw, 
 backs. The English lessons were always a trial, but 
 
MAKING FRIENDS. 47 
 
 they grew better as time went on, and the music 
 lessons were far more satisfactory. 
 
 As for me, I began to grow fond of my pupil ; she 
 was such a crude, instinctive creature, so curiously 
 undeveloped for her time of life, that one could not 
 but take her under one's wing and forgive her her 
 failings as one forgives a little child. 
 
 I had now been a month in Pisa, and the first sense 
 of desolation and strangeness had worn off. There 
 were moments, even now, when the longing for home 
 grew so desperate that I was on the point of rushing 
 off to England by the next train ; but I was growing 
 accustomed to my surroundings ; the sense of being 
 imprisoned in an enchanted palace had vanished, and 
 had been followed by a more prosaic, but more com- 
 fortable, adaptation to environment. 
 
 My life moved from day to day in a groove, and 
 I ceased to question the order of things. In the 
 morning were the lessons and the walk with Bianca ; 
 the afternoons were looked upon as my own, and these 
 I generally passed in reading, writing letters, and in 
 walking about the city, whose every stone I was getting 
 to know by heart. 
 
 Often leaning on the bridge and looking across at 
 the palaces curving along the river, I peopled with a 
 
48 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 visionary company the lofty rooms beyond the lofty 
 windows. 
 
 Here Shelley came with his wife and the Williams', 
 and here it was that they made acquaintance with 
 Emilia Vivian, the heroine of " Epipsychidion." 
 Byron had a palazzo all to himself, whence he rode 
 out with Trelawney, to the delight of the population. 
 
 Leigh Hunt lingered here in his many -wanderings, 
 and Landor led a hermit life in some hidden corner 
 of the old town. 
 
 Claire Clairmont, that unfortunate mortal, who 
 where'er she came brought calamity, vibrated 
 discontentedly between here and Florence, and it 
 seemed that sometimes I saw her, a little, unhappy, 
 self-conscious ghost, looking from the upper windows 
 of Shelley's palace. 
 
 And here, too, after the storm and the shipwreck 
 in which their lives' happiness had gone down, came 
 those two forlorn women, Mary Shelley and Jane 
 Williams. Upon the picture of such sorrow I could 
 not trust myself to gaze ; only now and then I heard 
 their shadowy weeping in some dim, great chamber 
 of a half-deserted house. 
 
 At other times, I returned to my first friend, the 
 great piazza, whose marvels it seemed impossible to 
 
MAKING FRIENDS. 49 
 
 exhaust, and for which I grew to entertain a curiously 
 personal affection. 
 
 But as the spring came on, and the mild, enervating 
 breezes ousted more and more their colder comrades, 
 I began to long with all my soul and body for the 
 country. The brown hills, so near and yet so far, 
 inspired me with a fervour of longing. I had 
 promised never to go beyond the city walls ; even the 
 great park, or Casine, where already the trees were 
 burgeoning, was forbidden ground, though sometimes, 
 indeed, I drove out there with the ladies. The cool 
 and distant peaks of the Apennines drew my heart 
 towards them with an ever-growing magnetism. 
 
 The cypresses and ilexes springing up beyond the 
 high white walls of a garden, the scent of spring 
 flowers borne across to me in passing, filled me with 
 a longing and a melancholy which were new to me. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the enervating climate, the 
 restricted life and the solitude — for solitude, when all 
 were said, it was — were beginning to tell "upon my 
 health. I was not unhappy, but I grew thin and pale, 
 and was developing a hitherto unknown mood of 
 dreamy introspection. 
 
 In June, I gathered, the whole Brogi household 
 would adjourn to the family villa near the baths 'of 
 4 
 
50 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 Lucca. It was taken for granted that I was to 
 accompany them, and, indeed, I had determined on 
 making out my full year, should my services be 
 required for so long. 
 
 After that, no doubt, a husband would be found for 
 Bianca, and I could return to England with a clear 
 conscience and quite a nice little amount of savings. 
 Mother should have a deep arm-chair, and Rosalind 
 a really handsome wedding present ; and with my 
 new acquisition of Italian I hoped to be able to 
 command a higher price in the educational market. 
 
 The evenings were generally passed in chatter, in 
 which I soon learnt to take my part ; and I began to 
 be included in the invitations to the houses of the 
 various ladies who " received," like the Marchesa, on 
 certain evenings of the week. 
 
 No subject of gossip was too trivial for discussion ; 
 and I could not but admire the way in which the 
 tiniest incident was taken up, turned inside out, 
 battledored this way and that, and finally wore 
 threadbare before it was allowed to drop, by these 
 highly skilled talkers. Talk, indeed, was the business 
 of their lives, the staple fare of existence. 
 
 Every one treated me with perfect courtesy, but 
 also, it must be owned, with perfect coldness. 
 
MAKING FRIENDS. 51 
 
 Bianca, as I said before, developed a sort of 
 fondness for me ; and Annunziala included me in 
 her general benevolence — Annunziata, good soul, who 
 was always laughing, when she was not deluged in 
 tears. I fancy the charming Romeo had his draw- 
 backs as a husband. 
 
 The Marchesa, with her glib talk, her stately 
 courtesy, was in truth the chilliest and the most 
 reserved of mortals. Of Romeo I saw but little. 
 With the old Marchese, alone, I was conscious of a 
 silent sympathy. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COSTANZA MARCHETTI. 
 
 One morning after breakfast I found the whole family 
 assembled in the yellow drawing-room in a state of 
 unusual excitement. Even the bloodless little 
 Marchesa had a red spot on either shrivelled cheek, 
 and her handsome old husband had thrown off for 
 once his mask of impenetrable and impassive 
 dignity in favour of an air of distinct and lively 
 pleasure. 
 
 Bianca was chattering, Romeo was smiling, and 
 Annunziata, of course, was smiling too. Beckoning 
 me confidentially towards her, and showing her gums 
 even more freely than usual, she said : " There is 
 great news. The Marchesino Andrea is coming 
 home. We have had a letter this morning, and we 
 are to expect him within a fortnight." 
 
 I received with genuine interest this piece of infor- 
 mation. From the first I had decided that the rebel 
 
COSTANZA MARCHETTI. 53 
 
 was probably the most interesting member of his 
 family, and had even gone so far as to "derive" him 
 from his father, in accordance with the latter-day 
 scientific fashion which has infected the most un- 
 scientific among us. 
 
 Bianca was quite unmanageable that morning, and 
 I had finally to abandon all attempts at discipline and 
 let her chat away, in English, to her heart's con- 
 tent. 
 
 " I cried all day when Andrea went away," she 
 rattled on ; " I was quite a little thing, and I did 
 nothing but cry. Even mamma cried, too. When 
 he was home she was often very, very angry with 
 Andrea. Every one was always being angry with 
 him," she added presently, "but every one liked him 
 best. There was often loud talking with papa and 
 Romeo. I used to peep from the door of my 
 nursery and see Andrea stride past with a white face 
 and a great frown." She knitted her own pale brows 
 together in illustration of her own words, and looked 
 so ridiculous that I could not help laughing. 
 
 I judged it best, moreover, to cut short these 
 confidences, and we adjourned, with some reluctance 
 on her part, to the piano. 
 
 Lunch was a very cheerful meal that day, and 
 
54 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 afterwards Bianca thrust her arm in mine and dragged 
 me gaily up to the sitting-room. 
 
 " Only think," she said, mamma is writing to 
 Costanza Marchetti at Florence to ask her to stay 
 with us the week after next." 
 
 " Is the signorina a great friend of yours ? " 
 
 Bianca looked exceedingly sly. " Oh yes, she is a 
 great friend of mine. I stayed with her once at 
 Florence. They have a beautiful, beautiful house on 
 the Lung' Arno, and Costanza has more dresses than 
 she can wear." 
 
 She spoke with such an air of naive and important 
 self-consciousness that I could scarcely refrain from 
 smiling. 
 
 It was impossible not to see through her meaning. 
 The beloved truant was to be permanently trapped ; 
 the trap to be baited with a rich, perhaps a beautiful 
 bride. 
 
 The situation was truly interesting ; I foresaw the 
 playing out of a little comedy under my very eyes. 
 Life quickened perceptibly in the palazzo after the 
 receipt of the letter from America. 
 
 Plans for picnics, balls, and other gaieties were 
 freely discussed. There was a constant dragging 
 about of heavy furniture along the corridors, from 
 
COSTANZA MARCHETTI. 55 
 
 which I gathered that rooms were being suitably 
 prepared both for Andrea and his possible bride. 
 
 At the gossip parliaments, nothing else was talked 
 of but the coming event ; the misdemeanours of 
 servants, the rudeness of tradesmen, and the latest 
 Pisan scandal being relegated for the time being to 
 complete obscurity. 
 
 In about ten days Costanza Marchetti appeared on 
 the scene. 
 
 We were sitting in the yellow drawing-room after 
 lunch when the carriage drove up, followed by a fly 
 heavily laden with luggage. 
 
 Bianca had rushed to the window at the sound of 
 wheels, and had hastily described the cavalcade. 
 
 A few minutes later in came Romeo with a young, 
 or youngish, lady, dressed in the height of fashion, 
 on his arm. 
 
 She advanced towards the Marchesa with a sort of 
 sliding curtsy, and shook hands from the elbow in a 
 manner worthy of Bond Street. But the meeting 
 between her and Bianca was even more striking. 
 
 Retreating a little, to allow free play for their 
 operations, the young ladies tilted forward on their 
 high heels, precipitating themselves into one another's 
 arms, where they kissed one another violently on 
 
56 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 either cheek. Retreating again, they returned once 
 more to the charge, and the performance was gone 
 through for a second time. 
 
 Then they sat down close together on the sofa, 
 stroking one another's hands. 
 
 " Costanza powders so thickly with violet powder, 
 it makes me quite ill," Bianca confided to me later 
 in the day ; " and she thinks there is nobody like 
 herself in all the world." 
 
 When the Contessima, for that I discovered was 
 her style and title, had detached her fashionable 
 bird-cage veil from the brim of her large hat, I fell 
 to observing her with some curiosity from my modest 
 corner. She was no longer in her first youth — about 
 twenty-eight, I should say — but she was distinctly 
 handsome, in a rather hard-featured fashion. 
 
 When she was introduced to me, she bowed very 
 stiffly, and said, " How do you do, Miss ? " in the 
 funniest English I had ever heard. 
 
 " It is so good of you to come to us," said the 
 Marchesa, with her usual stateliness ; " to leave your 
 gay Florence before the end of the Carnival for our 
 quiet Pisa. We cannot promise you many parties 
 and balls, Costanza." 
 
 Perhaps Costanza had seen too many balls in her 
 
COSTANZA MARCHETTI. 57 
 
 time — had discovered them, perhaps (who knows?), 
 to be merely dust and ashes. 
 
 At any rate, she eagerly and gushingly disclaimed 
 her hostess's insinuation, and there was voluble ex- 
 change of compliments between the ladies. 
 
 "Will you give Bianca a holiday for this week, Miss 
 Meredith?" said the Marchesa, presently. 
 
 " Certainly, if you will allow it," I answered, saying 
 what I knew I was intended to say. 
 
 Costanza looked across at me coldly, taking in the 
 modest details of my costume. 
 
 " And when does the Marchesino arrive ? " she 
 asked, turning to his mother. 
 
 " Not till late on Thursday night." 
 
 Bianca counted upon her fingers. 
 
 " Three whole days and a half," she cried. 
 
 " On Friday," said the Marchesa, "we have arranged 
 a little dance. It is so near the end of Carnival we 
 could not put it off till long after his arrival." 
 
 "Ah, dearest Marchesa," cried Costanza, clasping 
 her hands in a rather mechanical rapture, " it will be 
 too delightful ! Do we dance in the ball-room below, 
 or in here ? " 
 
 " In the ball-room," said the Marchesa, while 
 Annunziata nodded across at me, saying — 
 
5S MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 " Do you dance, Miss Meredith ? " 
 
 "Yes; I am very fond of it," I answered, but it 
 must be owned that I looked forward with but scant 
 interest to the festivity. My insular mind was unable 
 to rise to the idea of Italian partners. 
 
 Costanza raized her eyeglass, with its long tortoise- 
 shell handle, to her heavy-lidded eyes, and surveyed 
 me scrutinizingly. It had been evident from the first 
 that she had but a poor opinion of me. 
 
 " I hope you will join us on Friday, Miss Meredith," 
 said the Marchesa, with much ceremony. 
 
 I could not help feeling snubbed. I had taken it 
 for granted that I was to appear ; this formal invitation 
 was inexpressibly chilling. 
 
 I did not enjoy my holiday of the next few days. 
 I had always been exceedingly grateful for my few 
 hours of daily solitude, and these were mine no 
 more. 
 
 The fact that the ladies of the household never 
 seemed to need either solitude or silence had impressed 
 me from the first as a curious phenomenon. Now, 
 for the time being, I was dragged into the current of 
 their lives, and throughout the day was forced to 
 share in the ceaseless chatter, without which, it 
 seemed, a guest could not be entertained, a ball 
 
COSTANZA MARCHETTI. 59 
 
 given, or even a son received into the bosom of his 
 family. 
 
 Here, there, and everywhere was the unfortunate 
 Miss Meredith — at everybody's beck and call, " up- 
 stairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber." 
 
 " It is fortunate that it is only me," I reflected. 
 " I don't know what Jenny or Rosalind would do. 
 They would just pack up and go." For, at home, 
 the liberty of the individual had always been greatly 
 respected, which was, perhaps, the reason why we 
 managed to live together in such complete harmony. 
 
 As for Bianca and her friend, they clattered about 
 all day long together on their high heels, their 
 arms intertwined, exchanging confidences, compar- 
 ing possessions, and eating toritio till their teeth ached. 
 In the intervals of this absorption in friendship my 
 pupil would come up to me, throw her arms round 
 me, and pour out a flood of the frankest criticisms on 
 the fair Costanza. To these I refused to listen. 
 
 " How can I tell, Bianca, that you do not rush off 
 to the Contessima and complain of me to her? " 
 
 " Dearest little signorina, there could be nothing to 
 complain off." 
 
 " Of course," I said, " we know that. I am perfect. 
 But, seriously, Bianca, I do not understand this kiss- 
 
60 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 ing and hugging of a person one moment, and saying 
 evil things of her the next." 
 
 Bianea was getting on for nineteen, but it was 
 necessary to treat her like a child. She hung her 
 head, and took the rebuke very meekly. 
 
 " But, signorina, say what you will, Costanza does 
 put wadding in her stays because she is so thin, and 
 then pretends to have a fine figure. And she has a 
 bad temper, as every one knows. . . ." 
 
 " Bianea, you are incorrigible ! " I put my hand 
 across her mouth, and ran down the corridor to my 
 own room. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF THE REBEL. 
 
 The covered gallery which ran along the back of 
 the house was flooded in the afternoon with sunshine. 
 Here, as the day declined, I loved to pace, basking in 
 the warmth and rejoicing in the brightness, for mild 
 and clear as the day might be out of doors, within the 
 thick- walled palace it was always mirk and chill. 
 
 The long, high wall of the gallery was covered 
 with pictures — chiefly paintings of dead and gone 
 Brogi — most of them worthless, taken singly; taken 
 collectively, interesting as a study of the varieties of 
 family types. 
 
 Here was Bianca, to the life, painted two centuries 
 ago ; the old Marchese looked out from a dingy 
 canvass 300 years old at least, and a curious mixture of 
 Romeo and his sister disported itself in powder amid a 
 florid eighteenth century family group. Conspicuous 
 among so much indifferent workmanship hung a 
 
62 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 genuine Bronzino of considerable beauty, represent- 
 ing a young man, whose charming aspect was scarcely 
 marred by his stiff and elaborate fifteenth century 
 costume. The dark eyes of this picture had a way of 
 following one up and down the gallery in a rather 
 disconcerting manner ; already I had woven a series 
 of little legends about him, and had decided that 
 he left his frame at night, like the creatures in 
 " Ruddy gore," to roam the house as a ghost where 
 once he had lived as a man. 
 
 Opposite the pictures, on which they shed their 
 light, was a row of windows, set close together deep 
 in the thick wall, and rising almost to the ceiling. They 
 were not made open, but through their numerous 
 and dingy panes I could see across the roofs of the 
 town to the hills, or down below to where a neglected 
 bit of territory, enclosed between high walls, did duty 
 as a garden. 
 
 In one corner of this latter stood a great ilex tree, 
 its massive grey trunk old and gnarled, its blue-green 
 foliage casting a wide shadow. Two or three cypresses, 
 with their broom-like stems, sprang from the overgrown 
 turf, which, at this season of the year, was beginning 
 to be yellow with daffodils, and a thick growth of 
 laurel bushes ran along under the walls. An empty 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF THE REBEL. 63 
 
 marble basin, approached by broken pavement, marked 
 the site of a forgotten fountain, the stone-crop run- 
 ning riot about its borders ; the house-leek thrusting 
 itself every now and then through the interstices 
 of shattered stone. Forlorn, uncared for as was this 
 square of ground, it had for me a mysterious attraction; 
 it seemed to me that there clung to it through all 
 change of times and weathers, something of the beauty 
 in desolation which makes the charm of Italy. 
 
 It was about four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, 
 and I was wandering up and down the gallery in the 
 sunshine. 
 
 I was alone for the first time during the last three 
 days, and was making the best of this brief respite 
 from the gregarious life to which I saw myself doomed 
 for some time to come. The ladies were out driving, 
 paying calls and making a few last purchases for the 
 coming festivities. In the evening Andrea was 
 expected, and an atmosphere of excitement pervaded 
 the whole household. 
 
 " They are really fond of him, it seems," I mused ; 
 " these people who, as far as I can make out, are so cold." 
 
 Then I leaned my forehead disconsolately against 
 the window, and had a little burst of sadness all by 
 myself. 
 
64 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 The constant strain of the last few days had tired 
 me. I longed intensely for peace, for rest, for affection, 
 for the sweet and simple kindliness of home. 
 
 I had even lost my interest in the coming event 
 which seemed to accentuate my forlornness. 
 
 What were other people's brothers to me ? Let 
 mother or one of the girls come out to me, and I 
 would not be behindhand in rejoicing. " No one 
 wants me, no one cares for me, and I don't care for 
 any one either," I said to myself gloomily, brushing 
 away a stray tear with the back of my hand. Then I 
 moved from the window and my contemplation of the 
 ilex tree, and began slowly pacing down the gallery, 
 which was getting fuller every minute of the thick 
 golden sunlight. 
 
 But suddenly my heart seemed to stop beating, my 
 blood froze, loud pulses fell to throbbing in my ears. 
 I remained rooted to the spot with horror, while 
 my eyes fixed themselves on a figure, which, as yet 
 on the further side of a shaft of moted sunlight, was 
 slowly advancing towards me from the distant end of 
 the gallery. 
 
 " Is it the Bronzino come to life ? " whispered a 
 voice in the back recess of my consciousness. The 
 next moment I was laughing at my own fears, and was 
 
the home-coming of the rebel. C5 
 
 contemplating with interest and astonishment the very 
 flesh-and-blood presentiment of a modern gentleman 
 which stood bowing before me. 
 
 " I fear I have startled you/' said a decidedly 
 human voice, speaking in English, with a peculiar 
 accent, while the speaker looked straight at me with a 
 pair of dark eyes that were certainly like those of the 
 Bronzino. 
 
 " Oh, no ; it was my own fault for being so stupid," 
 I answered rather breathlessly, shaken out of my self- 
 possession. 
 
 "I am Andrea Brogi," he said, with a little bow; 
 " and I believe I have the pleasure of addressing ISliss 
 Clarke ? " 
 
 "I am Miss Meredith, your sister's governess," I 
 answered, feeling perhaps a little hurt that the sub- 
 stitution of one English teacher for another had not 
 been thought a matter of sufficient importance for 
 mention in the frequent letters which the family had 
 been in the habit of sending to America. Andrea, 
 with great simplicity, went on to explain his presence 
 in the gallery. 
 
 " I am some hours before my time, you see. I had 
 miscalculated the trains between this and Livorno. 
 Now don't you think this a nice reception, Miss 
 5 
 
66 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 Meredith ? " he went on, with a smile and a sadder 
 change of tone. " No one to meet me at the depot, 
 no one to meet me at home ! Father and brother at 
 the club, mother and sister amusing themselves in the 
 town." 
 
 His remark scarcely seemed to admit of a reply ; it 
 was not my place to assure him of his welcome, and 
 I got out of the situation with a smile. 
 
 He looked at me again, this time more attentively. 
 " But I fear you were really frightened just now. You 
 are pale still and trembling. Did you think I was a 
 ghost ? " 
 
 "I thought — I thought you were the Bronzino come 
 down from its frame," I answered, astonished at my 
 own daring. The complete absence of self-conscious- 
 ness in my companion, the delight, moreover, of being 
 addressed in fluent English, gave me courage. 
 
 As I spoke, I moved over half-unconsciously to the 
 picture in question. Andrea, smiling gently, followed 
 me, and planting himself before the canvas contem- 
 plated it with a genuine naive interest that was irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 I stood by, uncertain whether to go or stay, 
 furtively regarding him. 
 
 "Was there ever such a creature," I thought \ 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF THE REBEL. 67 
 
 "with your handsome serious face, your gentle 
 dignified air for all the world like Romeo's ; with 
 your sweet Italian voice and your ridiculous American 
 accent — and the general suggestion about you of an 
 old bottle with new wine poured in — only in this case 
 by no means to the detriment of the bottle ? " 
 
 At this point the unconscious object of my medita- 
 tion broke in upon it. 
 
 " Why, yes," said Andrea, calmly, " I had never 
 noticed it before, but I really am uncommonly like 
 the fellow." 
 
 As he spoke, he fixed his eyes, frank as a child's, 
 upon my face. 
 
 As for me, I could not forbear smiling ; whereupon 
 Andrea, struck with the humour of the thing, broke 
 into a radiant and responsive smile. I thought I had 
 never seen any one so funny or so charming. 
 
 At this point a bell rang through the house. "That 
 must be my mother," he said, growing suddenly alert. 
 " Miss Meredith, you will excuse me." 
 
 I lingered in the gallery after he had left, but my for- 
 lorn and pensive mood often minutes ago had vanished. 
 
 Rather wistfully, but with a certain excitement, I 
 listened to the confused sound of voices which echoed 
 up from below. 
 
OS Miss Meredith. 
 
 Then I heard the whole party pass upstairs behind 
 me, the heels of the ladies clattering in a somewhat 
 frenzied manner on the stones. 
 
 Annunziata was laughing and crying, the Marchesa 
 was talking earnestly, the young ladies scattered 
 ejaculations as they went. Every now and then I 
 caught the clear tones of Andrea's voice. 
 
 At dinner that night there was high festival. Every 
 one talked incessantly, even Romeo and his father. 
 We had a turkey stuffed with chestnuts, and the 
 Marchese brought forth his choicest wines. At the 
 beginning of the meal I had been introduced to the 
 new arrival, and, for no earthly reason, neither had 
 made mention of the less formal fashion in which we 
 had become acquainted. Some friends dropped in 
 after dinner, and Andrea was again the hero of the 
 hour — a rather trying position, which he bore with 
 astonishing grace. As for me, I sat sewing in a 
 distant corner of the room, content with my 
 spectator's place, growing more and more interested 
 in the spectacle. 
 
 " That Costanza ! " I thought, rather crossly, as I 
 observed the handsome Contessima smiling archly at 
 Andrea above her fan. " I wonder how long the 
 little comedy will be a-playing ? As for the end, that, 
 
THE HOME-COMING OF THE REBEL. 69 
 
 I suppose, is a foregone conclusion." Then I bent 
 my head over my crewelwork again. I was beginning 
 to feel annoyed with Andrea for having passed over 
 our first meeting in silence ; I was beginning, also to 
 wish I had furred slippers like Bianca's, as a protection 
 against the cold floor. 
 
 " Miss Meredith," said a voice at my elbow, " you 
 are cold; your teeth will soon begin to chatter in 
 your head." 
 
 Then, before I knew what was happening, I was 
 led from my corner, and installed close to the kind- 
 ling logs. And it was Andrea, the hero of the day, 
 who had done this thing ; but had done it so quietly, 
 so much as a matter of course, as scarcely to attract 
 attention, though the Marchesa's eye fell on me coldly 
 as I took up my new position. 
 
 "It really does make the place more alive," I 
 reflected, as I laid my head on my pillow that night. 
 " I am quite glad the Marchesino is here. And I 
 wonder what he thinks of Costanza ? " 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN ITALIAN BALL. 
 
 The next day was exquisitely bright and warm — we 
 seemed to have leapt at a bound into the very heart 
 of spring — and when I came out of my room I was 
 greeted with the news that Andrea and the ladies had 
 gone to drive in the Cascine. Annunziata was my 
 informant. She had stayed at home, and, freed from 
 the rigid eye of her mother-in-law, was sitting very 
 much at her ease, ready to gossip with the first 
 comer. 
 
 The Marchesina could rise to an occasion as well 
 as any one else ; could, when duty called, confine her 
 stout form in the stiffest of stays, and build up her 
 hair into the neatest of bandolined pyramids. But I 
 think she was never so happy as when, the bow 
 unbent, she could expand into a loose morning-jacket 
 and twist up her hair into a vague, unbecoming knot 
 behind. 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. 71 
 
 " Dear little signorina," she cried, beckoning me to 
 a seat with her embroidery scissors, " have you heard 
 the good news ? Andrea returns no more to America." 
 
 " He has arranged matters with Costanza pretty 
 quickly," was my reflection ; and at the thought of 
 that easy capitulation, he fell distinctly in my esteem. 
 
 "He has accepted a post in England," went on 
 Annunziata. "We shall see him every year, if not 
 oftener. Every one is overjoyed. It is a step in the 
 right direction. Who knows but one day he may 
 settle in Italy? " And she smiled meaningly, nodding 
 her head as she spoke. 
 
 The ladies came back at lunch-time without their 
 cavalier, who had stayed to collazionc with some 
 relatives in the town. 
 
 The afternoon was spent upstairs talking over the 
 dance which was to take place that evening, discussing 
 every detail of costume and every expected guest. 
 Costanza was as cross as two sticks, and hadn't a good 
 word for anybody. We dined an hour earlier than 
 usual, but none of the gentlemen put in an appearance 
 at the meal. With a sigh of inexpressible relief I rose 
 from the table, and escaped to the welcome shelter of 
 my room. 
 
 " I thought I was glad that Andrea had come," was 
 
72 
 
 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 my reflection ; " but to-day has been worse than any 
 other day." 
 
 Then, rather discontentedly, I began the prepara- 
 tions for my toilet. 
 
 The little black net dress, with the half-low bodice, 
 the tan gloves, the black satin shoes, were already 
 lying on the bed. 
 
 It is all very well to be Cinderella, if you happen to 
 have a fairy-godmother. Without this convenient 
 relative the situation is far less pleasant, and so com- 
 mon as to be not even picturesque. There are lots of 
 Cinderellas who never went to the ball, or, if they did 
 go, were taken no notice of by the prince, and were 
 completely cut out by the proud sisters. Musing thus, 
 with a pessimism which, to do me justice, was new to 
 me, I proceeded to make myself as fine as the circum- 
 stances of the case permitted. 
 
 " At least my hair is nice," I thought, as I stood 
 before the glass and fastened a knot of daffodils into 
 my bodice ; " Jenny always admired it, and the shape 
 of my head as well. I've been pale and ugly, too, for 
 the last few weeks, but my cheeks are red enough to- 
 night. They are only red from crossness, and the 
 same cause has made my eyes so bright, but how is 
 any one to know that ? " 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. J$ 
 
 " Why, Elsie Meredith," said a voice suddenly from 
 some inner region of my being, " what on earth is the 
 matter with you ? You, who could never be persuaded 
 to take enough interest in your personal appearance ! 
 Surely you have caught the infection from that middle- 
 aged Costanza." 
 
 With which rather spiteful reflection I blew out the 
 candles, threw a shawl over my shoulders, and ran 
 downstairs into the ball-room. 
 
 I was the first arrival. The room stood empty, and 
 I halted a moment on the threshold, struck by the 
 beauty of the scene. 
 
 The walls of the vast chamber were hung from top 
 to bottom with faded tapestry, of good design and soft 
 dim colour. From the painted, vaulted ceiling, which 
 rose to mysterious height, hung a chandelier in antique 
 silver, ablaze with innumerable wax lights. Other 
 lights in silver sconces were placed at intervals along 
 the walls, and narrow sofas in faded gilt and damask 
 bordered the wide space of the floor. 
 
 At one end of the room was a musician's gallery, 
 whence sounds of tuning were already to be 
 heard. 
 
 Two other rooms led out from the main apartment, 
 both of smaller size, indeed, but large withal, and 
 
74 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 characterized by the same severe beauty. There was 
 no attempt at decoration, nor was any needed. 
 
 Having made a general survey of the premises, I 
 advanced to the middle of the ball-room, and began 
 to feel the floor, across which a faded drugget had 
 been stretched, critically with my foot. 
 
 Then I circled round on the tips of my toes under 
 the chandelier, humming the air of " Dream Faces " 
 very softly to myself. 
 
 So absorbed was I in this occupation that I did 
 not notice the entrance of another person, till suddenly 
 a voice sounded quite close to my ear, " Well, is it a 
 good floor ? " 
 
 I stopped, blushing deeply. There before me 
 stood Andrea, looking very nice in his evening 
 clothes. 
 
 " Not very good, but quite fair," I answered, re- 
 covering my self-possession before his complete cool- 
 ness. 
 
 He smiled quietly. 
 
 " I guess you are a person of experience in such 
 matters, Miss Meredith." 
 
 " I haven't been to many balls, but we are fond of 
 dancing at home." 
 
 " We ? " said Andrea, interrogatively. 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. 75 
 
 " My sisters " 
 
 " And brothers ? " 
 
 "I haven't any brothers." 
 
 "And friends?" 
 
 "Yes, and friends." I could not help laughing; 
 then thinking that he looked rather offended, I added 
 by way of general conversation — 
 
 " How beautiful this room looks. It seems quite 
 desecration to dance in it." 
 
 He looked round, and up and down. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it is elegant. I think it very gloomy." 
 
 Again I found myself smiling. There was some- 
 thing so absurd in this mixture of the soft, sweet 
 Italian tones and the very pronounced American 
 accent, not to speak of the occasional flowers of 
 American idiom. 
 
 This time, however, Andrea did not appear offended, 
 but smiled back at me most charmingly, then turned 
 to greet his mother, who, the two girls in her wake, 
 came sweeping across the room in violet velvet and 
 diamonds. 
 
 " You are down early, Miss Meredith," she said to 
 me without moving a muscle of her face, but making 
 me feel that I had committed a breach of propriety in 
 venturing alone downstairs. 
 
y6 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 "You look so nice," cried Bianca, who, in blue- 
 striped silk and a high tortoiseshell comb, had made 
 the very worst of herself. 
 
 Ccstanza, shrugging her shoulders, turned and 
 rustled across the room. 
 
 I was surprised to see how handsome she looked. 
 With her gown of richest brocade, made with a long 
 train and Elizabethan collar, with the rubies gleaming 
 in her dark hair and in the folds of her bodice, she 
 seemed a figure well in harmony with the stately 
 beauty of her surroundings. As though conscious of 
 her effect, she moved over to the entrance of the 
 inner room, and stood there framed in the arched 
 doorway with its hangings of faded damask. Andrea 
 went at once to her side. 
 
 "It's a long time since we have had a dance together, 
 Contessima." 
 
 " A long, long time, Marchesino." 
 
 Then their voices fell, and there was nothing to be 
 heard but a twittering exchange of whispers. 
 
 Bianca put her arm about my waist and whirled 
 me round and round. 
 
 " We don't dance the same way," she said, releasing 
 me after a brief but breathless interval. 
 
 Annunziata in apple-green brocade and a pearl 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. 77 
 
 stomacher was the next arrival, laughing heartily, and 
 flourishing her lace handkerchief as she came. Be- 
 hind her strolled her husband, handsome, indolent, 
 and grave as a judge. The old Marchcse brought up 
 the rear. 
 
 The guests began now to arrive ; smart, dignified, 
 voluble matrons ; smart, expectant girls ; slight, serious 
 young civilians, dandling their hats as they came ; 
 pretty little officers in uniform, with an air of being 
 very much at home in a ball-room. Romeo brought me 
 a programme, and wrote his name down for the lancers. 
 
 Then I stood there rather forlornly while the 
 musicians struck up the first waltz. 
 
 At the first notes of the music Andrea left Costanza's 
 side and came towards me. 
 
 " He is going to ask me to dance," was my in- 
 voluntary reflection ; " how nice ! I am sure he dances 
 well." 
 
 "Let me introduce il signor capitano,"said Romeo's 
 voice in my ear ; and there stood a trim little person 
 in uniform before me, bowing and requesting the 
 honour of the first dance. 
 
 "One moment," said Andrea, quietly, as, rather 
 disappointed, I began to move away with my partner ; 
 " Miss Meredith, may I see your card ? " 
 
78 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 I handed him the little bit of gilt pasteboard, virgin, 
 save for his brother's name. 
 
 " Will you give me six and ten ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He returned to Costanza, his partner for the dance, 
 and I and my officer plunged into the throng. 
 
 It was not a success. There were no points of 
 agreement in our practice of waltzing, and after a few 
 turns we subsided on to one of the damask sofas, 
 exchanging commonplaces and watching the dancers, 
 whose rapid twists and bounding action filled my 
 heart with despair. 
 
 " I shall never be able to dance like that," I re- 
 flected. It was by no means an ungraceful perform- 
 ance. They leapt high, it is true, but in no vulgar 
 fashion of mere jumping ; rather they rose into the 
 air with something of the ease and elasticity of an 
 indiarubber ball, maintaining throughout an appear- 
 ance of great seriousness and dignity. 
 
 At the end of the dance, my partner bowed himself 
 away, and I withdrew rather forlornly to a corner, 
 hoping to escape unnoticed. Here, however, Romeo 
 again espied me, and led up to me a rather despondent 
 young gentleman — a student at the University of Pisa, 
 I afterwards learned — whom I had observed nursing 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. 79 
 
 his tall silk hat in solitude throughout the previous 
 dance. 
 
 I explained earnestly that I could not dance Italian 
 fashion ; that I preferred, indeed, to be a spectator, 
 and settled down into my corner with some philosophy. 
 
 " I dare say Andrea can waltz my way," I thought, 
 looking down at my programme, where the initials 
 A.B. stood out clearly on two of the gilt lines. "It 
 is rather disappointing to have to sit still and look on 
 while other people dance to this delightful music, but 
 it is amusing enough, in its way, and I must keep my 
 eyes open and remember things to tell the girls." 
 
 It annoyed me, I confess, a little to meet Costanza's 
 glance of contemptuous pity as she whirled by with a 
 tall officer, and a mean-spirited desire came over me 
 to explain to her that I was sitting out from choice, 
 and not from necessity. The flood of dancers rushed 
 on — those many-coloured ephemera, on which the 
 old, dim walls looked down so gravely — and still I 
 sat there patiently enough, though my eyes were 
 beginning to ache and my brain to whirl. 
 
 Annunziata's apple-green skirts, Bianca's blue and 
 white stripes, the Contessima's brocade and rubies, 
 were growing familiar to weariness, so often did they 
 flash before my sight. It was with genuine relief that 
 
80 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 I welcomed Romeo, who came up to claim the fifth 
 dance, the lancers, for which he had engaged me at 
 the beginning of the evening. 
 
 But alas ! the word " lancers " printed in French on 
 the programme proved a mere will-o'-the-wisp, and I 
 found myself drawn into the intricacies of a quite 
 unknown and elaborate dance. 
 
 Romeo, gravely piloting me through the confusing 
 maze, was all courtesy and patience ; but Andrea, 
 who with CosUnza was our vis-a-vis, seemed entirely 
 absorbed in observing my stupidity. 
 
 " And I am really getting through with it very well," 
 was my reflection ; " it is all that Costanza who makes 
 him notice the mistakes." 
 
 The next dance was Andrea's — a waltz. 
 
 " Have you been having a good time, Miss Mere- 
 dith ?" he asked, as we stood awaiting the music. "I 
 lost sight of you till the lancers, just now." 
 
 " I have been sitting in a corner, looking on," I 
 answered dismally, but with a smile. 
 
 "What ! " he drew his brows together. 
 
 " It is no one's fault but my own. I can't waltz 
 Italian fashion. Perhaps we had better not attempt 
 it." 
 
 For answer Andrea put his arm scientifically round' 
 
AN. ITALIAN BALL. Si 
 
 my waist, piloting me into the middle of the room, 
 where a few couples were already revolving. 
 
 " I have yet to find the young lady with whom I 
 could not waltz," he observed, quietly, as we glided 
 smoothly and rapidly across the floor. 
 
 Oh, the delights of that waltz ! It was one of the 
 intensely good things of life which cannot happen 
 often even in the happiest careers ; one of the little 
 bits of perfection which start up now and then to 
 astonish us, plants of such delicate growth that only 
 by an unforeseen succession of accidents are they ever 
 brought to birth. With what ease my partner skimmed 
 about that crowded hall ! How skilfully he steered 
 among the bounding complex ! Was ever such music 
 heard out of heaven ; and was ever such a kind, com- 
 fortable, reassuring presence as that of Andrea ? 
 
 A moment ago I had been bored, wistful, tired ; 
 now I had nothing left to wish for. 
 
 "Well," he said, as, the music coming to an end, 
 we paused for the first time ; " that was not so bad for 
 an Italian, was it ? " 
 
 I was so happy that I could only smile, and my 
 partner, apparently not disconcerted by my stupidity, 
 led me into the inner room, installed me in a chair, 
 and seated himself in another opposite. 
 
 6 
 
82 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 At the same moment Romeo came sauntering up to 
 us, throwing a remark in rapid Italian to his brother. 
 
 The latter, with a slight frown, rose reluctantly, and 
 the two men went over to the doorway, where they 
 stood talking. 
 
 I fell to observing them with considerable interest, 
 these handsome, dark-eyed gentlemen, with their 
 grace and air of breeding, who were at the same time 
 so curiously alike and so curiously different. 
 
 In both the same simplicity and ease was felt to 
 cover a certain inscrutability, the frankness a con- 
 siderable depth of reserve ; and in neither was seen a 
 person to be thwarted with impunity. But whereas 
 in Romeo's case the quiet manner was the un- 
 mistakable mark of a genuine indolence and in- 
 difference, in Andrea's it only served to bring out 
 more clearly the keen vitality, the alertness, the 
 purpose with which his whole personality was instinct. 
 
 I had not much time for my observations. In the 
 course of a few minutes Annunziata rustled smilingly 
 past them, and threw herself and her green skirts into 
 the chair just vacated by her brother-in-law. 
 
 The latter shot a quick glance at her, shrugged his 
 shoulders slightly, resumed his conversation with 
 Romeo, and made no attempt to rejoin me. 
 
AN ITALIAN BALL. 83 
 
 As for me, my little cup of pleasure was dashed to 
 the ground. 
 
 Annunziata, fanning herself and talking volubly, 
 made but a poor substitute for Andrea, and I began 
 to be dimly aware of a certain hostility towards 
 myself in the atmosphere. 
 
 The next dance was played, and the next, and still 
 Annunziata sat there smiling. The two gentlemen 
 had long disappeared into the ball-room, and we had 
 the smaller apartment to ourselves. 
 
 "I can't stand it any longer," I thought, "even 
 with another waltz with Andrea in prospect." And 
 making an apology to the Marchesina, I stole through 
 a side door upstairs to bed. 
 
 Sounds of revelry reached me faint through the 
 thick walls for many succeeding hours ; and I lay 
 awake on my great bed till the dawn crept in through 
 the shutters. 
 
 "I have been a wallflower," I reflected, "a wall- 
 flower, to do me justice, for the first time in my life. 
 And I'm not so sure that, in some respects, it wasn't 
 the nicest dance I ever was at." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 '•'what has happened to me?" 
 
 " Costanza is so cross," said Bianca, drawing me 
 aside, in her childish fashion ; " she talks of going 
 back at once to Florence, and I don't know who 
 would be sorry if she did." 
 
 " Oh, for shame, Bianca ; she is your guest," I said, 
 really shocked. 
 
 It was the morning after the ball, and all the ladies 
 were assembled in the sitting-room, displaying every 
 one of them unmistakable signs of what is sometimes 
 called " hot coppers." 
 
 I had been greeted coldly on my entrance, a fact 
 which had dashed my own cheerful mood, and had set 
 me seriously considering plans of departure. " If they 
 are going to dislike me, there's an end of the matter," 
 I thought; but I hated the idea of retiring beaten 
 from the field. 
 
 I did not succeed in making my escape for a single 
 
" WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?" 85 
 
 hour throughout the day. Every one wanted Miss 
 Meredith's services ; now she must hold a skein of 
 wool, now accompany Costanza's song on the piano, 
 now shout her uncertain Italian down the trumpet of 
 a deaf old visitor. I was quite worn out by dinner- 
 time ; and afterwards the whole party drove off to a 
 reception, leaving me behind. 
 
 " Does not the signorina accompany us ? " said 
 Andrea to his mother, as they stood awaiting the 
 carriage. 
 
 " Miss Meredith is tired and goes to bed," 
 answered the Marchesa in her dry, impenetrable 
 way. I had not been invited, but I made no remark. 
 Andrea opened his eyes wide, and came over 
 deliberately to the sofa where I sat. 
 
 There was such a determined look about the lines 
 of his mouth, about his whole presence, that I found 
 myself unconsciously thinking : " You are a very, very 
 obstinate person, Marchesino, and I for one should be 
 sorry to defy you. You looked just like that five 
 years ago, when they were trying to tie you to the 
 ancestral apron-strings, and I don't know that Costanza 
 is to be envied, when all is said." 
 
 "Miss Meredith," said his lowered voice in my ear, 
 "this is the first opportunity you have given me today 
 
86 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 of telling you what I think of your conduct. I do not 
 wonder that you are afraid of me." 
 
 " Marchesino ! " 
 
 " To make engagements and to break them is not 
 thought good behaviour either in Italy or in America. 
 Perhaps in England it is different." 
 
 I looked up, and meeting his eyes forgot everything 
 else in the world. Forgot the Marchesa hovering near, 
 only prevented by a certain awe of her son from 
 swooping down on us ; forgot Costanza champing 
 the bit, as it were, in the doorway ; forgot the cold, 
 unfriendly glances which had made life dark for me 
 throughout the day. 
 
 " I had no partner for number ten," went on 
 Andrea, " though a lady had promised to dance it 
 with me. Now what do you think of that lady's 
 behaviour ? " 
 
 His gravity was too much for my own, and I 
 smiled. 
 
 "You suffer from too keen a sense of humour, 
 Miss Meredith," he said, and I scarcely knew whether 
 to take him seriously or not. I only knew that my 
 heart was beating, that my pulses were throbbing as 
 they had never done before. 
 
 " The carriage is at the door, Andrea," cried 
 
"what has. happened to me?" 87 
 
 Bianca, bouncing up to us, and looking inquisitive 
 and excited. 
 
 He rose at once, holding out his hand. 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Meredith," he said, aloud ; " I 
 am sorry that you do not accompany us." 
 
 Costanza flounced across the passage noisily ; the 
 Marchesa looked me full in the face, then turned away 
 in silence ; and even Annunziata was grave. I felt 
 suddenly that I had been brought up before a court of 
 justice, tried, and found guilty of some heinous but 
 unknown offence. 
 
 Light still lingered in the gallery, and when the 
 carriage had rolled off I sought shelter there, pacing 
 to and fro with rapid, unequal tread. What had 
 happened to me ? What curious change had wrought 
 itself not only in myself, but in my surroundings, 
 during these last two days ? Was it only two days 
 since Andrea had come towards me down this very 
 gallery? Unconsciously the thought shaped itself, 
 and then I grew crimson in the solitude. What had 
 Andrea to do with the altered state of things ? How 
 could his home-coming affect the little governess, the 
 humblest member of that stately household ? 
 
 There in the glow of the fading sunlight hung the 
 Bronzino, its eyes — so like some other eyes — gazing 
 
88 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 steadily at me from the canvas. " Beautiful eyes," I 
 thought; "honest eyes, good eyes ! There was never 
 anything very bad in that person's life. I think he 
 was good and happy, and that every one was fond of 
 him." 
 
 And then again I blushed, and turned away 
 suddenly. To blush at a picture ! 
 
 Down in the deserted garden the spring was 
 carrying on her work, in her own rapid, noiseless 
 fashion. No doubt it was the spring also that was 
 stirring in my heart ; that was causing all sorts of 
 new, unexpected growths of thought and feeling to 
 sprout into sudden life ; that was changing the 
 habitual serenity of my mood into something of the 
 fitfulness of an April day. 
 
 Alternately happy and miserable, I continued to 
 pace the gallery till the last remnant of sunlight had 
 died away, and the brilliant moonlight came streaming 
 in through the windows. 
 
 Then my courage faded all at once. The stony 
 place struck chill, my own footsteps echoed unnaturally 
 loud ; the eyes of the Bronzino staring through the 
 silver radiance, filled me with unspeakable terror. 
 
 With a beating heart I gathered up my skirts and 
 fled up the silent stairs, along the corridor, to my room. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 Leaning out from the window of my room the next 
 morning, I saw Andrea and his father walking slowly 
 along the Lung' Arno in the sunlight. 
 
 In the filial relation, Andrea, I had before observed, 
 particularly shone. His charming manner was never 
 so charming as when he was addressing his father; 
 and the presence of his younger son appeared to 
 have a vitalizing, rejuvenating effect on the old 
 Marchese. 
 
 And now, as I watched them pacing amicably in 
 the delightful spring morning, the tears rose for a 
 moment to my eyes ; I remembered that it was 
 Sunday, that a long way off in unromantic Islington 
 my mother was making ready for the walk to church, 
 while I, an exile, looked from my palace window 
 with nothing better in prospect than a solitary journey 
 to the Chiesa Itiglese. Annunziata had not gone to 
 
90 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 mass, and when I came downstairs ready dressed she 
 explained that she had a headache, and was in need 
 of a little company to cheer her up. 
 
 Of course I could not do less than offer to forego 
 my walk and attendance at church, which I did with 
 a wistful recollection of the beauty and sweetness of 
 the day. 
 
 " Have you heard ? " she said. " Costanza goes 
 back to Florence to-night. She prefers not to miss 
 the last two days of Carnival, Monday and Tuesday. 
 So she says," cried the Marchesina, with a frankness 
 that astonished me, even from her ; " so she says ; 
 but between ourselves, Andrea was very attentive 
 last night to Emilia di Rossa. Costanza ought to 
 understand what he is by now. She has known him 
 all her life ; she ought certainly to be aware that his 
 one little weakness — Andrea is as good as gold — is 
 the ladies." 
 
 I bent my head low over my work, with an 
 indignant, shame-stricken consciousness that I was 
 blushing. "He is evidently engaged to Costanza," 
 I thought, and I wished the earth would open and 
 swallow me. 
 
 "And a young girl, like Emilia," went on Annun- 
 ziata ; " who knows what construction she might put 
 
"AS -GOOD AS GOLD. 91 
 
 upon his behaviour? It is not that he says so much, 
 but he has a way with him which is open to mis- 
 interpretation. Poor little thing, she has no money 
 to speak of, and, even if she had, who are the Di 
 Rossas ? Andrea, for all he is so free and easy, is as 
 proud as the devil, and the very last man to make a 
 mesalliance. A convent, say I, will be the end of the 
 Di Rossa." And she sighed contentedly. 
 
 Was it possible that she was insulting me? Was 
 this a warning, a warning to me, Elsie Meredith ? 
 Did she think .me an adventuress, setting traps for a 
 rich and noble husband, or merely an eager fool liable 
 to put a misconstruction on the simplest acts of kind- 
 liness and courtesy ? 
 
 My blazing cheeks, no doubt, confirmed whichever 
 suspicion she had been indulging in, but I was deter- 
 mined to show her that I was not afraid. Lifting my 
 face — with its hateful crimson — boldly to hers, I said : 
 " We in England regard marriage and — and love in 
 another way. I know it is not so in Italy; but with 
 us the reason for getting married is that you are fond 
 of some one, and that some one is fond of you. Other 
 sorts of marriages are not thought nice," with which 
 bold and sweeping statement on behalf of my native 
 land I returned with trembling fingers to my needlework. 
 
92 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 To do me justice, I fully believed in my own words. 
 That marriage which had not affection for its basis 
 was shameful had been the simple creed of the little 
 world at home. 
 
 " Indeed?" said Annunziata, with genuine interest; 
 " but, as you say, it is not so with us." 
 
 My lips twitched in an irresistible smile. Her 
 round eyes met mine so frankly, her round face was 
 so unruffled in its amiability, that I could not but 
 feel I had made a fool of myself. The guileless lady 
 was prattling on, no doubt as usual, as a relief to her 
 own feelings, and not with any underlying intention. 
 
 I felt more ashamed than before of my own self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Elsie Meredith ? " 
 cried a voice within me. " I think your own mother 
 wouldn't know you ; your own sisters would pass you 
 by in the street." 
 
 "Andrea ought to know," went on Annunziata, 
 " that such freedom of manners is not permissible in 
 Italy between a young man and young women. He 
 seems to have forgotten this in America, where, I am 
 told, the licence is something shocking." 
 
 I wished the good lady would be less confidential— 
 what was all this to me? — and I was almost glad when 
 
"AS GOOD AS GOLD. 93 
 
 the ladies came sailing in from mass, all of them 
 evidently in the worst possible tempers. 
 
 There was an air of constraint about the whole 
 party at lunch that day. Wedged in between the 
 Marchesa and Romeo I sat silent and glum, having 
 returned Andrea's cordial bow very coldly across the 
 table. Every one deplored Costanza's approaching 
 departure, rather mechanically, I thought, and that 
 young lady herself repeatedly expressed her regret at 
 leaving. 
 
 "Dear Marchesa," she cried, "I am at my wits' 
 end with disappointment ; but my mother's letter this 
 morning admits of but one repby. She says she 
 cannot spare me from the gaieties of the next two 
 days." 
 
 "You might come back after Ash Wednesday," 
 said Bianca, who sat with her arm round her friend 
 between the courses, and whose friendship seemed to 
 have been kindled into a blaze by the coming separa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Dearest Bianca, if I could only persuade you to 
 return with me ! " 
 
 " Bianca never makes visits," answered her mother, 
 drily. 
 
 " Were you at church this morning, Miss Mere- 
 
94 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 dith ? " asked the old Marchese, kindly, as the figs 
 and chestnuts were put on the table. 
 
 It was the first time that any one had addressed me 
 directly throughout the meal, and I blushed hotly as 
 I gave my answer. 
 
 The departure of Costanza, her boxes and her maid, 
 was of course the great event of the afternoon. 
 
 The three gentlemen and Annunziata drove with 
 her to the station, and I was left behind with my pupil 
 and her mother. 
 
 A stiff bow from Costanza, a glare through her 
 double eyeglass, and a contemptuous " Good-bye, 
 Miss," in English, had not tended to raise my spirits. 
 To be an object of universal dislike was an experience 
 as new as it was unpleasant, and I was losing confi- 
 dence in myself with every hour. 
 
 Even Bianca had deserted me, and, ensconced close 
 to her mother, shot glances at me of her early 
 curiosity and criticism. 
 
 As for the Marchesa, that inscrutable person 
 scarcely stopped talking all the afternoon, rattling 
 on in her dry, colourless way about nothing at all. 
 Speech was to her the shield and buckler which 
 silence is to persons less gifted. Behind her own 
 volubility she could withdraw as behind a bulwark, 
 
" AS GOOD AS GOLD." 95 
 
 whence she made observations safe from being herself 
 observed. 
 
 I was quite worn out by eight o'clock, when the 
 usual Sunday visitors began to arrive. 
 
 "With my work in my hand, I sat on the outskirts 
 of the throng, not working indeed, but pondering 
 deeply. 
 
 " Miss Meredith, you are very industrious." 
 
 There before me stood Andrea, a very obstinate look 
 on his face, unmindful of Annunziata's proximity and 
 Romeo's scowls. 
 
 " As it happens, I haven't put in a stitch for the 
 last ten minutes," I answered quietly, though my 
 heart beat. 
 
 He drew a chair close to mine. 
 
 "You are unfair, Andrea, you are unfair," I 
 thought, " to make things worse for Miss Meredith 
 by singling her out in this way, when you know 
 it makes them all so cross. Things are bad enough 
 for her as it is, and you might forego your little bit of 
 amusement." 
 
 I began really to stitch with unnatural industry, 
 bending an unresponsive face over the work in my 
 hand. 
 
 " That is very pretty," said Andrea. 
 
(_)6 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 "No, no, Marchesino," I thought again, "you are 
 as good as gold, any one could see that from your 
 eyes ; but you have a little weakness, only one — ' the 
 ladies ' — and you must not be encouraged." 
 
 I turned to Annunziata, who, baffled by the English 
 speech, sat perplexed and helpless. 
 
 " Marchesina," I said aloud in Italian, "the 
 Marchesino admires my work." 
 
 " I taught her how to do it," cried Annunziata, 
 breaking into a smile. " See, it is not so easy to 
 draw the fine gold thread through the leather, but she 
 is an apt pupil." 
 
 " Miss Meredith, I am sorry to see you looking so 
 pale." Andrea dropped his voice very low, adhering 
 obstinately to English and fixing his eyes on mine. 
 
 " I haven't been out to-day." 
 
 " What, wasting this glorious weather indoors. Is 
 it possible that you are falling into the worst of our 
 Italian ways ? " 
 
 " I generally go for a walk." 
 
 I rose as I spoke, and turned to the Marchesina. 
 " I am so tired ; do you think I may be excused ? " 
 
 "Certainly, dear child." 
 
 Bowing to the assembled company I made my way 
 deliberately to the door. Andrea was there before 
 
" AS GOOD AS GOLD." 97 
 
 me, holding it open, a look of unusual sternness on 
 his face. 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Meredith," and then before 
 them all he held out his hand. 
 
 Only for a moment did our fingers join in a firm 
 eager clasp, only for a moment did his eyes meet 
 mine in a strange, mysterious glance. Only for a 
 moment, but as I fled softly, rapidly along the 
 corridor I felt that in that one instant of time all 
 my life's meaning had been changed. " As good as 
 gold; as good as gold." These words went round 
 and round in my head as I lay sobbing on the pillow. 
 
 Somehow that was the only part of Annunziata's 
 warning which remained with me. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "will you make me very happy?" 
 
 I rose early next morning, and without waiting for 
 my breakfast, ran downstairs, made Pasquale, the 
 vague servant, open the door for me, and I escaped 
 into the sunshine. 
 
 In the long and troubled night just passed I had 
 come to a resolution — I would go home. 
 
 From first to last, I told myself, the experiment 
 had been a failure. From first to last I had been out 
 of touch with the people with whom I had come to 
 dwell ; the almost undisguised hostility of the last 
 few days was merely the culmination of a growing 
 feeling. 
 
 In that atmosphere of suspicion, of disapprobation, 
 I could exist no longer. Defeated, indeed, but in no 
 wise disgraced, I would return whence I came. I 
 would tell them everything at home, and they would 
 understand. 
 
" WILL YOU MAKE ME VERY HAPPY ? " 99 
 
 That I had committed some mysterious breach of 
 Italian etiquette, outraged some notion of Italian 
 propriety, I could not doubt ; but at least I had been 
 guilty of nothing of which, judged by my own 
 standard, I could feel ashamed. 
 
 But my heart was very heavy as I sped on through 
 the streets, instinctively making my way to the 
 cathedral. 
 
 It was the second week in March, and the spring 
 was full upon us. The grass in the piazza smelt of 
 clover, and here and there on the brown hills was the 
 flush of blossoming peach or the snow of flowering 
 almonds. 
 
 In the soft light of the morning, cathedral, tower, 
 and baptistery seemed steeped in a divine calm. 
 Their beauty filled me with a great sadness. They 
 were my friends ; I had grown to love them, and now 
 I was leaving them, perhaps for ever. 
 
 Pacing up and down, and round about, I tried to 
 fix my thoughts on my plans, to consider with calm- 
 ness my course of action. But this was the upshot 
 of all my endeavours, the one ridiculous irrelevant 
 conclusion at which I could arrive — " He is certainly 
 not engaged to Costanza." 
 
 As I came round by the main door of the cathedral 
 
100 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 for perhaps the twentieth time, I saw Andrea walking 
 across the grass towards me. 
 
 A week ago, I had never seen his face ; now as I 
 watched him advancing in the sunlight, it seemed that 
 I had known him all my life. Never was figure more 
 familiar, never presence more reassuring, than that of 
 this stranger. The sight of him neither disturbed nor 
 astonished me; now that he was here, his coming 
 seemed inevitable, part of the natural order of 
 things. 
 
 " Ah, I have found you," he said quietly, and we 
 turned together and strolled towards the Campo 
 Santo. 
 
 "Do you often come here?" He stopped and 
 looked at me dreamily. 
 
 " Often, often. It is all so beautiful and so sad." 
 
 " It is very sad." 
 
 " Do you not see how very beautiful it is ? " I cried, 
 " that there is nothing like it in the whole world ? 
 And I am leaving it, and it breaks my heart ! " 
 
 " You are going away ? " 
 
 " Yes." I was calm no longer, but strangely 
 agitated. I turned away, and began pacing to and fro. 
 
 " Ah ! they have not made you happy ? " His eyes 
 flashed as he came up to me. 
 
" WILL YOU MAKE ME VERY HAPPY < IOI 
 
 " No," I said, " I am not happy ; but it is nobody's 
 fault. They do not like me, and I cannot bear it any 
 more. It has never happened to me before — no one 
 has thought me very wonderful, very clever, very 
 beautiful, very brilliant ; but people have always liked 
 me, and if I am not liked I shall die." 
 
 With which foolish outbreak — which astonished no 
 one more than the speaker — I turned away again with 
 streaming eyes. 
 
 "Let us come in here," said Andrea, still with that 
 strange calm in voice and manner, and together we 
 passed into the Campo Santo. 
 
 A bird was singing somewhere among the cypresses ; 
 the daffodils rose golden in the grass ; the strip of sky 
 between the cloisters was intensely blue. 
 
 "Miss Meredith," said Andrea, taking my hand, 
 " will you make me very happy — -will you be my 
 wife ? " 
 
 We were standing in the grass-plot, face to face, and 
 he was very pale. 
 
 His words seemed the most natural thing in the 
 world. I ought, perhaps, to have made a protest, 
 to have reminded him of family claims and dues, 
 to have made sure that love, not chivalry, was 
 speaking. 
 
102 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 But I only said, "Yes," very low, looking at him 
 as we stood there among the tombs, under the blue 
 heavens. 
 
 " As you came down the gallery, in the sunlight, 
 with the little grey gown, and the frightened look in 
 the modest eyes, I said to myself, ' Here, with the 
 help of God, comes my w r ife ! ' " 
 
 I do not know how long we had been in the 
 cloisters, pacing slowly, hand in hand, almost in 
 silence. The sun was high in the heavens, and the 
 bird in the cypresses sang no more. 
 
 " Do you know," cried Andrea, stopping suddenly, 
 and laughing, " here is a most ridiculous thing ! 
 What is your name ? for I haven't the ghost of an 
 idea ! " 
 
 "Elsie." I laughed, too. The joke struck us both 
 as an excellent one. 
 
 " Elsie ! Ah, the sweet name ! Elsie, Elsie ! Was 
 ever such a dear little name ? What shall we do 
 next, Elsie, my friend ? " 
 
 " Take me to the mountains ! " I cried, suddenly 
 aware that I was tired to exhaustion, that I had had 
 no sleep and no breakfast. " Take me to the 
 
"will you make me very happy?" 103 
 
 mountains ; I have longed, longed for them all these 
 days ! " 
 
 I staggered a little, and closed my eyes. 
 
 When I opened them he was holding me in his 
 arms, looking down anxiously at my face. 
 
 " Yes, we will go to the mountains ; but first I shall 
 take you home, and give you something to eat and 
 drink, Elsie." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE STORM. 
 
 " You are not afraid ? " said Andrea, as we turned on 
 to the Lung' Arno and came in sight of the house. 
 
 " No," I answered in all good faith, a little resenting 
 the question. 
 
 After all, what was there to fear? This was the 
 nineteenth century, when people's marriages were 
 looked upon as their own affairs, and the paternal 
 blessing — since it had ceased to be a sine qua non — ■ 
 was never long withheld. 
 
 If Andrea's family were disappointed in his choice, 
 and I supposed that at first such would be the case, 
 it lay with me to turn that disappointment into 
 satisfaction. 
 
 I had but a modest opinion of myself, yet I knew 
 that in making me his wife Andrea was doing nothing 
 to disgrace himself; his good taste, perhaps, was at 
 fault, but that was all. 
 
THE BREAKING OP THE STORM. I05 
 
 You see, I had been educated in a very primitive 
 and unworldly school of manners, and must ask you 
 to forgive my ignorance. 
 
 Yet I confess my heart did beat rather fast as we 
 made our way up the steps into the empty hall, and I 
 wished the next few hours well over. 
 
 I reminded myself that I was under Andrea's wing, 
 safe from harm, but looking up at Andrea I was not 
 quite sure of his own unruffled self-possession. A 
 distant hum of voices greeted us as we entered, 
 growing louder with every stair we mounted, and 
 when we reached the landing leading to the gallery, 
 there stood the whole family assembled like the people 
 in a comedy. 
 
 To judge from the sounds we heard, they had been 
 engaged in excited discussion, every one speaking at 
 once, but at our appearance a dead and awful silence 
 fell upon the group. 
 
 Slowly we advanced, the mark of every eye, then 
 came to a stop well in front of the group. 
 
 It seemed an age, but I believe it was less than a 
 minute, before the Marchesa stepped forward, looking 
 straight at me and away from her son, so as not in the 
 least to include him in her condemnation, and said : 
 " I am truly sorry, Miss Meredith, for I was given to 
 
106 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 understand that your mother was a very respectable 
 woman." 
 
 " Mother ! " cried Andrea, with a pale face and 
 flashing eyes ; " be careful of your words." Then 
 taking my hand, he turned to the old Marchese, who 
 stood helpless and speechless in the background, and 
 said loudly and deliberately: "This lady has promised 
 to be my wife." 
 
 For an instant no one spoke, but there was no 
 mistaking the meaning of their silence ; then Romeo 
 called out in a voice of suppressed fury : " It is 
 impossible ! " 
 
 Andrea, still holding my hand, turned with awful 
 calm upon his brother. Annunziata's ready tears were 
 flowing, and Bianca gazed open-mouthed with horror 
 and excitement upon the scene. 
 
 "Romeo," said Andrea, tightening his hold of my 
 fingers, "this is no affair of yours. Once before you 
 tried to interfere in my life ; I should have thought 
 the result had been too discouraging for a second 
 attempt." 
 
 " It is the affair of all of us when you try to bring 
 disgrace on the family." 
 
 " Disgrace ! Sir, do you know what word you are 
 using, and in reference to whom ? " 
 
THE BREAKING OF THE STORM. 107 
 
 " Oh, the signorina, of course, is charming. I have 
 nothing to say against her." 
 
 He bowed low, and, as our eyes met, I knew he 
 was my enemy. 
 
 " Andrea," said his mother, interposing between her 
 sons, " this is no time and place for discussion. Miss 
 Meredith shall come with me, and you shall endeavour 
 to explain to your father how it is you have insulted 
 him." 
 
 " My son," said the Marchese, speaking for the first 
 time, with a certain mournful dignity, "never before 
 has such a thing happened in our family as that a wife 
 should be brought home to it without the head of the 
 house being consulted. What am I to think of this 
 want of confidence, of respect, except that you are 
 ashamed of your choice ? " 
 
 " Father," answered Andrea, drawing my hand 
 through his arm, " it has throughout been my inten- 
 tion of asking your consent and your blessing. Nor 
 has there been any concealment on my part. From 
 the first I have expressed my admiration of this lady 
 very openly to you all. What is the result ? that she 
 is watched, persecuted like a suspected criminal, and 
 finally driven away — she a young girl, a stranger in a 
 foreign land. Can you expect the man who loves her 
 
I08 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 to stand by and see this without letting her know at 
 the first opportunity that there is one on whose pro- 
 tection she can at once and always rely ? " 
 
 " Andrea," said his mother, " we did but try our best 
 to prevent what we one and all regard as a misfortune. 
 Miss Meredith is no suitable bride for a son of the 
 house of Brogi. Oh " (as he opened his lips as about 
 to protest), " I have nothing to say against her, though 
 indeed you cannot expect me to be lost in admiration 
 of her discretion." 
 
 The Marchesa shrugged her shoulders and threw 
 out her hands as she spoke, with an impatience which 
 she rarely displayed. 
 
 Andrea answered very quietly : " My mother, this is 
 no time and place for such a discussion. With your 
 permission, I will retire with my father, and Miss 
 Meredith shall withdraw to her own room." He 
 released my hand very gently from his arm, and stood 
 a moment looking down at me. 
 
 "You are not afraid, Elsie?" he whispered in 
 English. 
 
 " Yes, I am frightened to death ! '' 
 
 " It will be all right very soon." 
 
 " Must you leave me, Andrea ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear, I must." 
 
THE BREAKING OF THE STORM. 109 
 
 He went over to his father and gave him his arm. 
 All this time Annunziata was weeping like the walrus 
 in "Alice," her loud sobs echoing dismally throughout 
 the house. 
 
 " Elsie," said Andrea, as be prepared to descend 
 with the Marchese, "go straight to your room." 
 
 I turned without a word, and stunned, astonished, 
 unutterably miserable, fled upstairs without a glance 
 at the hostile group on the landing. 
 
 Once the door safely shut behind me, my pent up 
 feelings found vent, and I sobbed hysterically. 
 
 Was ever such a morning in a woman's life ? And 
 I had had no breakfast. 
 
 I was not allowed much time in which to indulge 
 my emotions. Very soon came a knock at the door, 
 and a maid entered with wine, bread, and chestnuts. 
 With the volubility of Italian servants, she pressed me 
 to eat and drink, and when she departed with the 
 empty tray I felt refreshed, and ready to fight my 
 battle to the last. A second knock at the door was 
 not long in following the first, and this time it was the 
 Marchesa who responded to my "Come in." 
 
 My heart sank considerably as the stately little lady 
 advanced towards me, and I inwardly reproached 
 Andrea for his desertion. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A SKILFUL DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 " Miss Meredith," said the Marchesa, taking the 
 chair I mechanically offered her, and waving her hand 
 towards another, " pray be seated." 
 
 I obeyed, feeling secretly much in awe of the rigid 
 little figure sitting very upright opposite me. 
 
 " What, after all, is the love of a young man but a 
 passing infatuation? " 
 
 This was the first gun fired into the enemy's camp, 
 but there was no answering volley. 
 
 That she spoke in all good faith I fully believe, and 
 I felt how useless would be any discussion between us 
 of the point. I looked down in silence. 
 
 "Miss Meredith," went on the dry, fluent tones, 
 which I was beginning to feel were the tones of doom, 
 "I will refrain from blaming you in this unfortunate 
 matter. I will merely state the case as it stands. You 
 come into this family, are well received, kindly treated, 
 
A SKILFUL DIPLOMATIST. Ill 
 
 and regarded with esteem by us all. In return for 
 this, I am bound to say, you perform your duties and 
 do what is required of you with amiability. So far all 
 is well. But there are traditions, feelings, sacred 
 customs, and emotions belonging to the family wh^re 
 you have been received of which you can have no 
 knowledge. That is not required, nor expected of 
 you. What is expected of you, as of every right- 
 minded person, is that you should at least respect 
 what is of such importance to others. Is this the 
 case? Have you not rather taken delight in out- 
 raging our feelings in their most delicate relations ; in 
 trampling, in your selfish ignorance, on all that we 
 hold most dear ? " 
 
 Her words stung me; they were cruel words, but I 
 had sworn inwardly to stand by my guns. 
 
 With hands interlocked and drooping head, I sat 
 before her without word. 
 
 " We had looked forward to this homecoming of 
 my son," she went on, branching off into another talk, 
 " as to the beginning of a fresh epoch of our lives, his 
 father and I, we that are no longer young. To him 
 we had looked for the carrying on of our race. From 
 my daughter-in-law we have been obliged to despair 
 of issue. Andrea, suitably married and established in 
 
112 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 the home of his ancestors, is what we all dreamed one 
 day to see — nor do I even now entirely abandon the 
 hope of seeing it." 
 
 With burning cheeks, and an awful sense that a web 
 was being woven about me, I rose stiffly from my seat, 
 and went over to a cabinet where stood my mother's 
 portrait. 
 
 I looked a moment at the pictured eyes, as if for 
 guidance, then said in a low voice : 
 
 " Marchesa, I have given my word to your son, and 
 only at his bidding can I take it back." 
 
 " It does not take much penetration," she replied, 
 " to know that my son is the last person to bid you do 
 anything of the kind. That he is the soul of chivalry, 
 that the very fact of a person being in an unfortunate 
 position would of itself attract his regard, a child might 
 easily discover." 
 
 She spoke with such genuine feeling that for a 
 moment my heart went out towards her ; for a moment 
 our eyes met, and not unkindly. 
 
 " No doubt," she went on, after a pause, and rising 
 from her seat, "no doubt you represented the pre- 
 cautions we thought necessary to adopt, for your own 
 protection as well my son's, as a form of persecution. 
 If you did not actually represent it to him, I feel 
 
A SKILFUL DIPLOMATIST. 11^ 
 
 sure you gave him to understand that such was the 
 case." 
 
 She had hit the mark. 
 
 With an agonizing rush of shame, of despair, I re- 
 membered my own outbreak on the piazza that morn- 
 ing ; how I had confided to Andrea, unasked, my 
 intention of going away, and of the sorrow the prospect 
 gave me. 
 
 Had I been mistaken ? Had the message of his 
 eyes, his voice, his manner, meant nothing ? Had I 
 indeed been unmindful of my woman's modesty ? The 
 Marchesa was aware at once of having struck home, 
 and the monotonous tones began again. 
 
 " Of course, Miss Meredith, if you choose to take 
 advantage of my son's chivalry, and of his passing 
 fancy — for Andrea is exceedingly susceptible and, no 
 doubt, believes himself in love with you — if, I say, you 
 choose to do this, there is no more to be said. 
 
 " Andrea will never take back his word, on that you 
 may rely. But be sure of this, his life will be spoiled, 
 and he will know it. It is not to be expected that you 
 should realize the meaning of ancestral pride, of 
 family honour. Perhaps you think the sentiments 
 which have taken centuries to grow can wither up in a 
 day before the flame of a foolish fancy ? " 
 S 
 
114 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 She had conquered. Moving over to her I looked 
 straight in her face. My voice rang strange and 
 hollow : " By marrying your son I should bring no 
 disgrace upon him nor his family. But I do not in- 
 tend to marry him." 
 
 She had not anticipated so easy a victory. Her 
 cheek flushed, almost as if with compunction. She 
 held out her hands towards me. 
 
 But as for me, I turned away ungraciously, and, 
 going up to the chest, began to lift out my under linen, 
 and to pile it on the bed. 
 
 " Marchesa, do not thank me, do not praise me ? 
 I do not know if I am doing right or wrong." 
 
 " Signorina, you have taken the course of an honour- 
 able woman." 
 
 I went over to the corner where my box stood, and 
 lifted the lid with trembling hands. 
 
 " Marchesa, will your servant find out what hour of 
 the night the train leaves for Genoa ? and will he have 
 a drosky ready in time to take me to the station ? " 
 
 " Miss Meredith, there is no necessity for this haste. 
 You cannot depart like this, and without advising your 
 family." 
 
 I laid a dress — the little black dress I had worn at 
 the dance — at the bottom of the box. It ought to 
 
A SKILFUL DIPLOMATIST. 115 
 
 have gone at the top, but such details did not occupy 
 me at the moment. 
 
 "I trust," I said, "that there may be no difficulties 
 placed in the way of my immediate departure." 
 
 She came up to me in some agitation. 
 
 " But, signorina ! " 
 
 " Marchesa," I answered, " you have my promise. 
 Is not that what you wanted ? " 
 
 I intended a dismissal, I frankly own it, but the 
 Marchesa took my rudeness with such humility that 
 for the moment I felt ashamed of myself. 
 
 " You have forced me, Miss Meredith, to speak to 
 you as I have never spoken before to a stranger 
 beneath my roof. To fly in the face of the hospitable 
 traditions of the house " 
 
 There came a knock at the door, and the servant 
 announced that the Marchesino desired to speak with 
 Miss Meredith. 
 
 We two women, who both loved Andrea, looked at 
 one another. 
 
 " You will have to tell him yourself, signorina; from 
 no one else would my son receive your message." 
 The Marchesa turned away as she spoke. 
 
 "I will write to him." 
 
 Hastily dismissing the servant with words to the 
 
Il6 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 effect that Andrea should be waited on in a few 
 minutes, the Marchesa handed me, in silence, the 
 little paper-case which lay on the table. With un- 
 certain fingers I wrote : 
 
 " Marchesino, — We were both of us hasty and ill- 
 advised this morning. I must thank you for the great 
 honour you have done me, but at the same time I 
 must beg of you to release me from the promise I have 
 made. — Elsie Meredith." 
 
 I handed the open sheet to the Marchesa, who read 
 it carefully, folded it up, thanked me and went from 
 the room. 
 
 Then suddenly the great bed began to waltz, the 
 open box in the corner, the painted ceiling, the chest 
 and cabinet to whirl about in hopeless confusion. I 
 don't know how it came about, but for the first time 
 in my life I fainted. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RKLEASED FROM HER VOW. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the afternoon ; already the front 
 of the house was in shadow, and the drawing-room was 
 cool and dark. Here Andrea and I were standing 
 face to face ; both pale, both resolute, while the Mar- 
 chesa looked from one to the other with anxious eyes. 
 
 "You wrote this?" he asked, holding up my unfor- 
 tunate scrawl. 
 
 " Yes, I wrote it." 
 
 " And you meant what you wrote? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He came a little nearer to me, speaking, it seemed, 
 with a certain passionate contempt. 
 
 " And you expected me, Elsie, to accept such an 
 answer ? " 
 
 Before the fire of his glance my eyes fell suddenly. 
 "I have no other answer to give you," I murmured 
 brokenly. 
 
Il8 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 The Marchesa, who had stayed in the room by my 
 own request, glanced questioningly from one to the 
 other, evidently unable to follow the rapid English of 
 the dialogue. 
 
 " Is it possible, Elsie, that you have deceived me ? 
 That you, who seemed so true, are falser than words 
 can say ? Have you forgotten what you said to me, 
 what your eyes said as well as your lips, a few short 
 hours ago ? " 
 
 " I have not forgotten, but I cannot marry you." 
 
 "Then you do not love me, Elsie? you have been 
 amusing yourself." 
 
 "If you choose to think so, I cannot help it." 
 
 " Elsie, whatever promise you have made to my 
 mother, whatever promise may have been extorted 
 from you, remember that your first promise and your 
 duty were to me." 
 
 I shivered from head to foot, while my heart echoed 
 his words. But I had given my word, and I would 
 not go back from it. Never should my mother's 
 daughter thrust herself unwelcomed in any house. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to me, Elsie ? " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Mother," he cried, turning flashing eyes to the 
 Marchesa, " what have you been saying to her, by 
 
RELEASED FROM HER VOW. II9 
 
 what means have you so transformed her, how have 
 you succeeded in wringing from her a most unjust 
 promise ? " 
 
 " Stay," I interposed, speaking also in Italian, " no 
 promise has been wrung from me, I gave it freely. 
 Marchesino, it seems you cannot believe it, yet it is 
 true that of my own free will I refuse to marry you, 
 that I take back my unconsidered word of this morn- 
 ing. I am no wife for you, and you no husband for 
 me ; a few hours of reflection have sufficed very plainly 
 to show me that." 
 
 He stood there, paler than ever, looking at me 
 with a piteous air of incredulity. " Elsie, it is not 
 possible — consider, remember — it is not true ! " 
 
 His voice broke, wavered, and fell ; from the pas- 
 sionate entreaty of his eyes I turned my own way. 
 
 " It is true, Marchesino, that I will never, never 
 marry you." 
 
 Clear, cold, and cruel, though very low, were the 
 tones of my voice ; I know not what angel or fiend was 
 giving me strength and utterance ; I only know that it 
 was not the normal Elsie who thus spoke and acted. 
 
 There was a pause, which seemed to last an age, 
 then once again his voice broke the stillness. 
 
 " Since, then, you choose to spoil my life, Elsie, and 
 
120 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 perhaps (who knows ?) your own, there is no more to 
 be said. Far be it from me to extort a woman's con- 
 sent from her. The only love worth having is that 
 which is given freely, which has courage, which has 
 pride." 
 
 Very hard and contemptuous sounded his words. 
 My heart cried out in agony ; " Andrea, you are un- 
 just !" but I stood there dumb as a fish, with clasped 
 hands and a drooping head. 
 
 "Mother," went on Andrea, "will you kindly sum- 
 mon my father and the others. Miss Meredith, oblige 
 me and stay a few moments ; I am sorry to trouble 
 you." 
 
 They came in slowly through the open door, the old 
 man, his son and the two younger ladies, anxious, 
 expectant. 
 
 Andrea turned towards them. 
 
 "My father," he said, "this lady refuses to marry 
 me, and no doubt everybody is content. That she 
 declines to face the hostility, the discourtesy of my 
 family, is not perhaps greatly to be wondered at. It is 
 evident that I am not considered worthy of so great a 
 sacrifice on her part ; I do not blame her; rather I 
 blame my own credulity in thinking my love returned. 
 But I wish you all to know," he added, " that I have 
 
RELEASED FROM HER VOW. 121 
 
 entirely altered my plans. I shall write off my appoint- 
 ment in England, and shall start to-night for Livorno, 
 on my way to America. My mother, you will kindly 
 send for an orario that I may know at what time to 
 order the carriage. Miss Meredith, I bid you good- 
 bye." 
 
 He turned round suddenly and faced me, holding 
 out his hand with an air of ceremony. 
 
 As for me, I glanced from the dear hand, the dear 
 eyes, to the circle of dismayed faces beyond, then, 
 without a word, I rushed through the open door to my 
 room. 
 
 Not daring to allow myself a moment's thought, I 
 fell to immediately packing — fitting in a neat mosaic 
 of stockings and petticoats as though it were the one 
 object of existence. 
 
 I do not know if it were minutes or hours before the 
 Marchesa came in, pale and unusually agitated, with 
 no air of enjoying her victory. 
 
 "Signorina," she said, " the train for Genoa leaves 
 at 8; I have ordered the carriage for 7.15. You 
 would prefer, perhaps, to dine in your room ? " 
 
 " I do not wish for dinner, thank you." 
 
 "You must allow me to thank you once again, 
 Miss Meredith." 
 
122 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 " Do not thank me," I cried, with sudden passion ; 
 " I have done nothing to be thanked for." 
 
 For, indeed, I was enjoying none of the compensa- 
 tions of martyrdom ; for me it was the pang without 
 the palm, as the poet says. 
 
 I had fallen in a cause in which I did not believe, 
 had been pressed into a service for which I had no 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " If you will excuse me, Marchesa," I went on, 
 " there are some books of mine in the schoolroom 
 which I must fetch ; " and with a little bow, I swept 
 into the corridor with an air as stately as her own. 
 
 Andrea's room was on the same floor as my own, 
 but at the other end of the passage, and I had to pass 
 it on my way to the schoolroom. The door stood wide 
 open, and just outside was a large trunk, which 
 Pasquale, the servant, was engaged in packing, while 
 his master gave directions and handed things from the 
 threshold. 
 
 I heard their voices as I came. 
 
 " At what time does the train go for Livorno, did 
 you say ? " 
 
 " At 9, excellaiza. The carriage will be back in 
 time from the station." 
 
 I glided past as rapidly as possible, filled with a 
 
RELEASED FROM HER VOW. 123 
 
 certain mournful humour at this spectacle of the 
 gentleman packing his box at one end of the hall, 
 while the lady packed hers at the other. 
 
 My room was empty when I regained it, and with 
 a heavy heart I finished my sad task, locking the box, 
 labelling and strapping it. 
 
 Then I put on my grey travelling dress, my hat, 
 veil, and gloves, and sat down by the window. 
 
 It was only half-past five, and these preparations 
 were a little premature ; but this confused, chaotic 
 day seemed beyond the ordinary measurements of 
 time. 
 
 A maidservant, with a dainty little dinner on a tray, 
 was the next arrival on the scene. She set it down 
 on a table near me, but I took no heed. As if I 
 could have swallowed a mouthful ! 
 
 I was quite calm now, only unutterably mournful. 
 " I have spoilt my life," I thought, as my eyes fixed 
 themselves drearily on the river, the old houses 
 opposite, the marble bridge — once all so strange, now 
 grown so dear ; " I have spoilt my life, and for what? 
 Ah, if mother had only been here to stand by me ! 
 But I was alone. What was I to do? Oh, Andrea, 
 do you hate me ? " 
 
 The tears streamed dow r n my face as I sat. " Oh, 
 
124 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 my beloved Pisa," I thought again, '-'how can I bear 
 to leave you ! " 
 
 Once more came a knock at the door — the little, 
 quick knock of the Marchesa ; and as I responded 
 duly, I reflected : " No doubt she comes to insult me 
 with my salary. And the worst of it is, I shall have 
 to take it ; for if I don't, how am I to get home ? " 
 
 She looked very unlike her usual, self-possessed 
 self as she came towards me. 
 
 " Miss Meredith, my husband wishes to speak to 
 you." 
 
 I rose wearily in mechanical obedience, and 
 followed her, silent and dejected, downstairs to the 
 Marchese's room. Here, amid his books and papers, 
 sat the old man, looking the picture of wretchedness. 
 
 "Ah, signorina," he said, "what will you think of 
 me, of us all ? Of the favour which, very humbly, I 
 have to beg of you ? I cannot bear thus to part from 
 my son ; he is going far away from me, in anger, for 
 an indefinite time. It is you, and you only, who can 
 persuade him to stop ! " 
 
 I look up in sudden astonishment. 
 
 " My child, go to him ; tell him that he can stay." 
 
 "Marchese, I am sorry, but you ask what is 
 impossible." 
 
RELEASED FROM HER VOW. 125 
 
 " I do not wonder," he said, with a most touching 
 yet dignified humility, "I do not wonder at your 
 reply. My wife, it is your part to speak to this 
 lady." 
 
 With set lips yet unblanching front, the gallant litde 
 Marchesa advanced. 
 
 " Miss Meredith, do not in this matter consider 
 yourself bound by any promise you have made to me. 
 I release you from it." 
 
 " May not the matter be considered ended ? " I 
 cried in very weariness ; " that I have come between 
 your son and his family no one regrets more than I. 
 Only let me go away ! " 
 
 The old man rose slowly, left the room, and went 
 to the foot of the stairs. 
 
 "Andrea, Andrea," I heard him call. 
 
 " His excellency has not finished packing," answered 
 the voice of Pasquale. 
 
 "Andrea, Andrea," cried his father again; then 
 came rapid footsteps, and in a few seconds Andrea 
 stood once more before me. 
 
 He turned from one to the other questioningly. 
 
 The Marchese took my hand. 
 
 "My son," he said, "can you not persuade this lady 
 to remain with us." 
 
126 MISS MEREDITH. 
 
 He looked up, my Andrea, and our eyes met ; but 
 on neither side was speech or movement. 
 
 The old man went on. 
 
 "Andrea, it is possible that we did wrong, your 
 mother and I, in attempting to interfere with you in 
 this matter. You must forgive us if we are slow to 
 understand the new spirit of radicalism which, it 
 seems, is the spirit of the times. Once before our 
 wishes clashed; but, my son, I cannot bear to send you 
 away in anger a second time. As for this lady, she 
 knows how deeply we all respect her. Persuade her 
 to forgive us, if indeed you can." 
 
 Andrea I saw was deeply moved ; he shaded his 
 eyes with his hand, and the tears flowed down my 
 own cheeks unchecked. 
 
 " Well, Elsie, it is for you to decide.'' He spoke 
 at last, coldly, in an off-hand manner. 
 
 I was lacking in pride, perhaps in dignity, for 
 though I said nothing, I held out my hand. 
 
 " Are you quite sure you love me, Elsie ? " 
 
 "Quite, quite sure, Andrea." 
 
 " I am so glad," cried Bianca, some ten minutes 
 later, giving me a hug, " I am so glad it is you and 
 not that bad-tempered Costanza." 
 
RELEASED FROM HER VOW. 127 
 
 "We are all glad," said the old Marchese, holding 
 
 out his hand with a smile, while Romeo and his 
 
 mother stood bearing their defeat with commendable 
 
 grace. 
 
 # * * * * 
 
 So it came to pass that on the evening of that 
 wonderful day Andrea and I, instead of being borne 
 by express trains to Genoa and Leghorn respectively, 
 were pacing the gallery arm in arm in the sunlight. 
 
 We had been engaged in this occupation for about 
 an hour, and now he knew all about my mother and 
 sisters, and the details of the happy life at Islington. 
 
 " We will live in England, but every year we will 
 come to Italy," he was saying, as we paused before 
 the Bronzino, which seemed to have taken in the 
 situation. 
 
 " I love Italy more than any place in the world,'' 
 I answered. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "We will be married immediately after Easter, 
 Elsie ! " 
 
 " Andrea, I go home the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " And to-morrow," he said, " we will go to the 
 mountains." 
 
 THE END. 
 
UNWIN BROTHERS, 
 CHILWORTII AND LONDON.