Inn having
been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a good bargain. Our
laughter aroused the Professor, who turned and gazed at our group from
the step of the carriage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his
unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had the same thought,
he now extracted his own parcel and silently extended it.

"A third!" cried Inness. And then we all gave way again.

"I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, when there was a
pause, "but I am sorry you took the trouble. Because--because Mr. Verney
has already kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the baskets."

At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than before--all, I mean,
save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in the most unamused voice, "How
_very_ amusing!" As we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one
thought of offering it to _us_), the superfluous gifts easily found
places among us, and were not the less thankfully received because
obtained in that roundabout way.

We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley
towards the sea.

"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther
up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called
Pigna."

"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.

"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly
existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.

Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.

On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came upon a boy and girl
sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe,
and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the
complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings
transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are
pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to
play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she
stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her
great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day
in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume
of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl
was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in
womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze
from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract