hat can be more beneficial than such a
holiday?"

Whereupon she put her arm through his and held it tight and said,
"Oh, Mellersh, you really are too sweet!"--her face red with pride in
him.

That he should so quickly assimilate the atmosphere, that he
should at once become nothing but kindness, showed surely what a real
affinity he had with good and beautiful things. He belonged quite
naturally in this place of heavenly calm. He was--extraordinary how
she had misjudged him--by nature a child of light. Fancy not minding
the dreadful fibs she had gone in for before leaving home; fancy
passing even those over without comment. Wonderful. Yet not
wonderful, for wasn't he in heaven? In heaven nobody minded any of
those done-with things, one didn't even trouble to forgive and forget,
one was much too happy. She pressed his arm tight in her gratitude and
appreciation; and though he did not withdraw his, neither did he
respond to her pressure. Mr. Wilkins was of a cool habit, and rarely
had any real wish to press.

Meanwhile, Costanza, perceiving that she had lost the Wilkinses'
ear had gone back to Mrs. Fisher, who at least understood Italian,
besides being clearly in the servants' eyes the one of the party marked
down by age and appearance to pay the bills; and to her, while Mrs.
Fisher put the final touches to her toilette, for she was preparing, by
means of putting on a hat and veil and feather boa and gloves, to go
for her first stroll in the lower garden--positively her first since
her arrival--she explained that unless she was given money to pay the
last week's bills the shops of Castagneto would refuse credit for the
current week's food. Not even credit would they give, affirmed
Costanza, who had been spending a great deal and was anxious to pay all
her relations what was owed them and also to find out how her
mistresses took it, for that day's meals. Soon it would be the hour of
colazione, and how could there be colazione without meat, without fish,
without eggs, without--

Mrs. Fisher took the bills out of her hand and looked at the
total; and she was so much astonished by its size, so much horrified by
the extravagance to which it testified, that she sat down at her
writing-table to go into the thing thoroughly.

Costanza had a very bad half-hour. She had not supposed it was
in the English to be so mercenary. And then la Vecchia, as she was
called in the kitchen, knew so much Italian, and with a do