the girls with the look of
physical content that comes in hot countries with the evening--the sun
flooding with its last gold, now the new marbles of the _facciata_,
now the alabaster and bronze of the Baptistery, and now the moving
crowds--the flowers-baskets--the pigeons--

She lifted her eyes with a sobbing breath, and saw the gray
cloud-curtain--the neglected garden--the solitary pony in the
field--with the shafts of rain striking across it. Despair stirred in
her--the physical nostalgia of the south. A happy heart might have
silenced the craving nerves; but hers was far from happy.

The door opened. A head was thrust in--the head of a fair-haired girl.
There was a pause.

"What do you want?" said Mrs. Melrose, haughtily, determined to assert
herself.

Thyrza came in slowly. She held a bunch of dripping Michaelmas daisies.

"Shall I get a glass for them? I thowt mebbe you'd like 'em in here."

Netta thanked her ungraciously. She remembered having seen the girl the
night before, and Anastasia had mentioned her as the daughter of the
_Contadino_.

Thyrza put the flowers in water, Netta watching her in silence; then
going into the hall, she returned with a pair of white lace curtains.

"Shall I put 'em up? It 'ud mebbe be more cheerful."

Netta looked at them languidly.

"Where do they come from?"

"Mr. Tyson brought 'em from Pengarth. He thowt you might like 'em for the
drawing-room."

Mrs. Melrose nodded, and Thyrza mounted a chair, and proceeded to put up
the curtains, turning an observant eye now and then on the thin-faced
lady sitting on the sofa, her long fingers clasped round her knees, and
her eyes--so large and staring as to be rather ugly than beautiful in
Thyrza's opinion--wandering absently round the room.

"It's a clashy day," Thyrza ventured at last.

"It's a dreadful day," said Mrs. Melrose sharply. "Does it always rain
like this?"

"Well, it _do_ rain," was Thyrza's cautious reply. "But there that's
better than snowin'--for t' shepherds."

Mrs. Melrose found the girl's voice pleasant, and could not deny that she
was pretty, in her rustic way.

"Has your father many sheep?"

"Aye, but they're all gone up to t' fells for t' winter. We had a grand
time here in September--at t' dippin'. Yo'd never ha' thowt there was so
mony folk about"--the girl went on, civilly, making talk.

"I never saw a single house, or a single light, on the drive from the
station last night," said Mrs. Melro