is domicile in Italy, Mr.
Wilder's fan had assumed the nature of a symbol; he could no more be
separated from it than St. Sebastian from his arrows or St. Laurence from
his gridiron. At Mr. Wilder's elbow was the empty chair where Constance
should have been--she who had insisted on six as a proper breakfast hour,
and had grudgingly consented to postpone it till half-past out of
deference to her sleepy-headed elders. Her father had finished his egg
and hers too, before she appeared, as nonchalant and smiling as if she
were out the earliest of all.

"I think you might have waited!" was her greeting from the doorway.

She advanced to the table, saluted in military fashion, dropped a kiss on
her father's bald spot, and possessed herself of the empty chair. She too
was clad in mountain-climbing costume, in so far as blouse and skirt and
leather leggings went, but above her face there fluttered the fluffy
white brim of a ruffled sun hat with a bunch of pink rosebuds set over
one ear.

"I am sorry not to wear my own Alpine hat, Aunt Hazel; I look so
deliciously German in it, but I simply can't afford to burn all the skin
off my nose."

"You can't make us believe that," said her father. "The reason is, that
Lieutenant di Ferara and Captain Coroloni are going with us today, and
that this hat is more becoming than the other."

"It's one reason," Constance agreed imperturbably, "but, as I say, I
don't wish to burn the skin off my nose, because that is unbecoming too.
You are ungrateful, Dad," she added as she helped herself to honey with a
liberal hand, "I invited them solely on your account because you like to
hear them talk English. Have the donkeys come?"

"The donkeys are at the back door nibbling the buds off the rose-bushes."

"And the driver?"

"Is sitting on the kitchen doorstep drinking coffee and smiling over the
top of his cup at Elizabetta. There are two of him."

"Two! I only ordered one."

"One is the official driver and the other is a boy whom he has brought
along to do the work."

Constance eyed her father sharply. There was something at once guilty and
triumphant about his expression.

"What is it, Dad?" she inquired sternly. "I suppose he has not got a
sash and earrings."

"On the contrary, he has."

"Really? How clever of Gustavo! I hope," she added anxiously, "that he
talks good Italian?"

"I don't know about his Italian, but he talks uncommonly good English."

"English!" There was reproach