xult anew in their dual solitude.

"Yes," he acknowledged, "Patapouf is a friend of mine--he is even a
member of my household. You must try not to think too ill of him. He
really is n't half a bad sort at bottom. But he 's English, and he
lives in the country. So, a true English country gentleman, he has
perhaps an exaggerated passion for the pleasures of the chase--and when
questions touching them arise, seems simply to be devoid of the ethical
sense. He 's not a whit worse than his human neighbours--and he 's a
hundred times handsomer and more intelligent."

Susanna, smiling a little, looked down at Patapouf, and considered.

"He is certainly very handsome," she agreed. "And--Patapouf? I like
his name. I will not think too ill of him if he will promise never
again to try to catch a--a _fringuello_. I don't remember the English
for _fringuello_?"

Her glance and her inflection conveyed a request to be reminded.

But Anthony shook his head.

"And I shall at once proceed to forget it. _Fringuello_ is so much
prettier."

Susanna gave a light little trill of laughter.

"What a delicious laugh," thought he that heard it.

And, laughing, "But before it has quite gone from you, do, pray, for my
instruction, just pronounce it once," she pleaded.

"How extraordinarily becoming to her that mantilla is," he thought.
"How it sets off her hair and her complexion--how it brings out the
sparkle of her eyes."

Her fine black hair, curling softly about her brow, and rippling away,
under the soft black lace, in loose abundance; her warm, clear
complexion; the texture of her skin, firm and smooth, with tiny blue
veins faintly showing at the temples; her sparkling, spirited dark
eyes, their merriment, their alertness, their graver underglow; the
spirited, high carriage of her head; that dark-blue, simple,
appropriate frock; and then her figure, upright, nervous, energetic,
with its fluent lines, with its fragrance of youth and of
womanhood,--oh, he was acutely conscious of them, he was thrilled by
his deep sense of their nearness to him, alone there, in the wide sunny
circle of green landscape, in the seclusion of that unfrequented hour.

"The word comes back to me dimly," he said, "as--as something like
_finch_."

"Finch?" said Susanna. "Thank you very much. Ah, yes,"--with an air
of recalling it,--"_finch_, to be sure. You are right," she smiled,
"_fringuello_ is prettier."

"What an adorable mouth," thoug