s considered, you
have treated me with wonderful kindness, and I thank you and kiss your
hands. I leave Florence tomorrow."

"I won't say I'm sorry!" she said, laughing again. "But I am very glad
to have seen you. I always wondered about you. You are a curiosity."

"Yes, you must find me so. A man who can resist your charms! The fact
is, I can't. This evening you are enchanting; and it is the first time I
have been alone with you."

She gave no heed to this; she turned away. But in a moment she came
back, and stood looking at me, and her beautiful solemn eyes seemed to
shine in the dimness of the room.

"How _could_ you treat my mother so?" she asked.

"Treat her so?"

"How could you desert the most charming woman in the world?"

"It was not a case of desertion; and if it had been it seems to me she
was consoled."

At this moment there was the sound of a step in the ante-chamber, and I
saw that the Countess perceived it to be Stanmer's.

"That wouldn't have happened," she murmured. "My poor mother needed a
protector."

Stanmer came in, interrupting our talk, and looking at me, I thought,
with a little air of bravado. He must think me indeed a tiresome,
meddlesome bore; and upon my word, turning it all over, I wonder at his
docility. After all, he's five-and-twenty--and yet I _must_ add, it
_does_ irritate me--the way he sticks! He was followed in a moment by
two or three of the regular Italians, and I made my visit short.

"Good-bye, Countess," I said; and she gave me her hand in silence. "Do
you need a protector?" I added, softly.

She looked at me from head to foot, and then, almost angrily--"Yes,
Signore."

But, to deprecate her anger, I kept her hand an instant, and then bent my
venerable head and kissed it. I think I appeased her.

BOLOGNA, 14th.--I left Florence on the 11th, and have been here these
three days. Delightful old Italian town--but it lacks the charm of my
Florentine secret.

I wrote that last entry five days ago, late at night, after coming back
from Casa Salsi. I afterwards fell asleep in my chair; the night was
half over when I woke up. Instead of going to bed, I stood a long time
at the window, looking out at the river. It was a warm, still night, and
the first faint streaks of sunrise were in the sky. Presently I heard a
slow footstep beneath my window, and looking down, made out by the aid of
a street lamp that Stanmer was but just coming home. I called to h