and
the door had swung open, a voice from incalculable altitudes had shouted,
"_Chi e?_" They had answered, as instructed, "_Amici_," and now they
pictured somebody listening to their shuffling ascent.

At the top, in fact, stood Giovanna, who regarded them with an eye the
color of strong black coffee and said, "_Riverisco_!"

The small old woman had a thin, bronze Dantesque face, molded by a
thousand indignations--all directed against proper objects of
indignation--to a settled severity; a face of narrow concentrated
passions and perfect fidelity and a preference for few words. The
friendly smiles of Aurora and Estelle produced in her a relenting.
Courtesy here demanded a pleasant look, and Giovanna was always
courteous. She stood aside for Gerald, who came to the very door to
welcome these ladies.

The guests were now assembled. One of them was staying with Gerald--Abbe
Johns, who had come for a few days from Leghorn, where he lived. The
others were Mrs. Foss and Miss Seymour.

What had been in Mrs. Fane's time the drawing-room had since become also
a studio. The landlord had permitted his tenant to increase the light by
extending the windows across the street-side wall. Beyond that, there
were as few signs about of the art-trade as Gerald had affectations of
the artist. The model-stand supporting books and things appeared like a
low table; easel, canvases, portfolios, all the littering properties of
a painter, had been shoved for the occasion into the next room, a
spacious glory-hole which Giovanna did not permit to become dusty beyond
the decent.

The result of removing, first, many of the things that made the room a
drawing-room, then, most of the things that made it a studio, left the
place rather bare. It was according to Gerald's taste: few things in it,
each having the merit of either beauty or interest, else the excuse of
utility.

Mrs. Foss had waited for Aurora's arrival to make the tea. The feast was
very simple. Gerald offered what his mother had used to offer. Giovanna
cut the bread-and-butter as that genteel lady had taught her, and
continued to buy the plum-cake at the same confectioner's.

Aurora had come in from the sunshine and cold with January roses in her
cheeks and exhilaration in her blood. At sight of her beloved Mrs. Foss
she laughed for joy. She rejoiced also to see Miss Seymour, who was one
of her "likes," and she was immensely interested to meet the abbe, whom
she knew to be Geral