ross the cultivated hill. The trees of the wood were small and
leafless, but noticeable for this--that their stems stood in violets as
rocks stand in the summer sea. There are such violets in England,
but not so many. Nor are there so many in Art, for no painter has the
courage. The cart-ruts were channels, the hollow lagoons; even the
dry white margin of the road was splashed, like a causeway soon to be
submerged under the advancing tide of spring. Philip paid no attention
at the time: he was thinking what to say next. But his eyes had
registered the beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to
Monteriano must traverse innumerable flowers.

"As far as I have seen him, I do like him," repeated Miss Abbott, after
a pause.

He thought she sounded a little defiant, and crushed her at once.

"What is he, please? You haven't told me that. What's his position?"

She opened her mouth to speak, and no sound came from it. Philip waited
patiently. She tried to be audacious, and failed pitiably.

"No position at all. He is kicking his heels, as my father would say.
You see, he has only just finished his military service."

"As a private?"

"I suppose so. There is general conscription. He was in the Bersaglieri,
I think. Isn't that the crack regiment?"

"The men in it must be short and broad. They must also be able to walk
six miles an hour."

She looked at him wildly, not understanding all that he said, but
feeling that he was very clever. Then she continued her defence of
Signor Carella.

"And now, like most young men, he is looking out for something to do."

"Meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile, like most young men, he lives with his people--father,
mother, two sisters, and a tiny tot of a brother."

There was a grating sprightliness about her that drove him nearly mad.
He determined to silence her at last.

"One more question, and only one more. What is his father?"

"His father," said Miss Abbott. "Well, I don't suppose you'll think it
a good match. But that's not the point. I mean the point is not--I mean
that social differences--love, after all--not but what--I--"

Philip ground his teeth together and said nothing.

"Gentlemen sometimes judge hardly. But I feel that you, and at
all events your mother--so really good in every sense, so really
unworldly--after all, love-marriages are made in heaven."

"Yes, Miss Abbott, I know. But I am anxious to hear heaven's choice. You
arouse my curiosity. Is my sist