her Dinner,
here she danced, here she wrote her letters. In this garden she walked;
her eyes looked upon this view," and so I was particularly attracted
towards the Villa Serbelloni, even though Prince Dalmar-Kalm had
suggested several reasons for our going to one of the hotels on the
level of the lake. Of course I'd not confided these reflections either
to Maida or Beechy, for even Maida is unsympathetic about some things,
and thinks, or says that she thinks, it is horridly snobbish to care
about titles. She told Beechy, in an argument they were having together,
that she would just as soon as not snub an English duke or marquise,
just to show that there were _some_ American girls who didn't come
abroad to spend their money on buying a husband from the British
aristocracy. She hasn't had a chance to prove her strength of mind in
this way yet, for so far we have met only an English baronet; though I
must admit that she's much nicer to Mr. Barrymore, who is nobody at all,
than she is either to Sir Ralph Moray or the Prince.

When we seemed to be dangling midway between heaven and earth, and the
sapphires that had been the lakes had turned into burnished silver
mirrors, Mr. Barrymore drew our attention to a high point of land
running out into the water, its shape sharply cut like a silhouette in
black against the silver. "That is where we shall be in about half an
hour more," said he, "for all those twinkling yellow stars mean the
Villa Serbelloni."

I thought it much more probable that we would be at the bottom of Lake
Como, having been previously dashed into pieces so small that no expert
could sort them. But just as the moon had painted a line of glittering
gold along the irregular edges of the purple mountains we did actually
arrive on level ground close to the border of the lake. Then we had to
mount again to the Villa Serbelloni, for there was no more direct way to
it, connecting with the road by which we had come, and after we had
wound up the side of the promontory for a little while we began to drink
in a fragrance as divine as if we really had been killed and had gone
straight to heaven.

It was quite a different fragrance from any I had ever known before in
any garden; not so richly heavy as on the Riviera, though penetrating;
as delicate, Maida said, as a Beethoven symphony, and as individual. I
believe if I were to go blind, and somebody should lead me into the
garden of the Villa Serbelloni without telling