knew the use of it, but it was all very
comfortable. The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more
space, and contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would
have approved of. Yet there were capabilities--great capabilities;
and so, before I left, I took it from the old gentleman in the
rusty costume, who turned out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the
'commendatore' of I don't know what order, and various other dignities
beside, all recited and set forth in the lease.

"I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved
the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn't an island, but it was
all but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock
denied access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable
pine wood to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that
even now, when I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire
of an evening, I just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through
its olive groves, or watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara
mountains.

"I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got
flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little
plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses,
so that the Queen--she was at Spezia for the bathing--came once to see
my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was as
gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in
their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with
enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times
as inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and
its quality--was it a spring--did it ever fail--and when, and how? Then
as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? What the
anchorage was like--mud--and why mud? And when I said there was always
a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, why? and I did
explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, which acted
as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back to verify
my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining everything,
and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to experience
the currents of air. 'You are right,' said he, as he got into his boat,
'quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a smelting-furnace.'

"I thought it odd praise