the Contessa."

"But wasn't his Highness's father sick? And didn't she have to go?
Else they wouldn't get his money, and all would go to the younger
brother. You don't understand these things, you women." Giacomo's
defense of his lady got into his fingers, and added much to the
brightness of the spoons. The two talked together now, as fast as
human tongues could go.

Assunta. She could have taken the Signorina.

Giacomo. She couldn't. It's fever.

Assunta. She could have left her maid.

Giacomo. Thank the holy father she didn't!

Assunta. And without a word of language to make herself understood.

Giacomo. She can learn, can't she?

Assunta. And with the cook gone, too! It's a great task for us.

Giacomo. You'd better be about it!... Going walking alone in the
hills! And calling me "Excellency." There's no telling what Americans
will do.

Assunta. She didn't know any better. When she has been here a week
she won't call you "Excellency"! I must make macaroni for dinner.

Giacomo. Ma che! Macaroni? Roast chicken and salad.

Assunta. Niente! Macaroni!

Giacomo. Roast chicken! You are a pretty one to take the place of the
cook!

Assunta. Roast chicken then! But what are you standing here for in
the hall polishing spoons? If the Contessa could see you!

Assunta dragged her husband by the hem of his white apron through the
great marble-paved dining-room out into the smoke-browned kitchen in
the rear.

"Now where's Tommaso, and how am I going to get my chicken?" she
demanded. "And why, in the name of all the saints, should an American
signorina's illustrious name be Daphne?"

CHAPTER II

An hour later it was four o'clock. High, high up among the sloping
hills Daphne sat on a great gray stone. Below her, out beyond olive
orchards and lines of cypress, beyond the distant stone pines,
stretched the Campagna, rolling in, like the sea that it used to be,
wave upon wave of color, green here, but purple in the distance, and
changing every moment with the shifting shadows of the floating clouds.
Dome and tower there, near the line of shining sea, meant Rome.

Full sense of the enchantment of it all looked out of the girl's face.
Wonder sat on her forehead, and on her parted lips. It was a face
serious, either with persistent purpose or with some momentary trouble,
yet full of an exquisite hunger for life and light and space. Eyes and
hair and curving cheek,--all the girl'