g better in the evening, when the time came for the "birthday
surprise" about which I must please say nothing--not even to Beechy.

We had coffee at the most idyllic spot imaginable, which we reached by
leaving the boat and mounting rather a steep path that went up beside a
baby cascade. At the top was a shady terrace, with arbours of grape
vines and roses, and a peasant's house, where the people live who waited
upon us. We had thick cream for our coffee, and delicious stuff with
raisins in it and sugar on top, which was neither bread nor cake. I
wanted the recipe for it, but I didn't like to get any one to ask; and
perhaps it wouldn't taste the same in Denver. Oh dear me, I begin to
think there are lots of things that won't taste the same in Denver! But
I _should_ love better than anything to go back with a high title, and
see what some of those society women, who turned up their noses at me
when I was only Mrs. Simon Kidder, would do then. There isn't one who
has a right to put crowns on her baggage or anywhere else, and I've got
that already, whatever happens by and by.

We were rowed back to Bellagio again, and climbed up by a short cut to
the Villa Serbelloni just in time to escape a storm on the lake. In a
flower-draped cave above our favourite terrace, we sat in garden chairs
and watched the effect, while Mr. Barrymore and Sir Ralph talked about
Pliny, whose statue was nearby, and some strange old general of
Napoleon's who lived for awhile at the Villa Serbolloni, and terrorized
people who wanted him to pay his debts, by keeping fierce, hungry
bloodhounds to patrol the place night and day.

When you are nicely sheltered, to watch rain falling in the distance,
and marching like troops of grey ghosts along the sky, is something like
watching other people's troubles comfortably, while you are happy
yourself--though Maida would think that a selfish speech. Anyway, the
effect of that storm was thrilling. First, Nature seemed to stop smiling
and grow very grave as the shadows deepened among the mountains. Then,
suddenly the thing happened which she had been expecting. A spurt of ink
was flung across the sky and lake, leaving on the left a wall of blue,
on the right an open door of gold. Black feathers drooped from the sky
and trailed across the roughened water, to be blown away from sight as
the storm passed from our lake to another; and when they had vanished,
out came the sun again to shine through violet mists whic