an't think what house you mean."

"Of course not, with your tastes. But imagine some nice, rich Americans,
without either art education or the smallest affectation of such a
thing, and ask yourself what they would like. Why, a big, square,
clean-looking, new-looking, wealthy-looking house, of course, set in a
nice garden, with, at the end of the garden, a nice stable. I was
thankful to find the place had been kept up."

"But is there--on the Lungarno, did you say?"

"It is that house we have called the Haughty Hermitage, Gerald," Brenda
helped him.

"Oh, that! But surely one doesn't live in a house like that!"

"Your excellent reason?" inquired Leslie.

"I don't know,"--he hesitated,--"but surely one doesn't live in a house
like that!"

They had to laugh at the expression brought into his face by his sense
of a mysterious incongruity.

"No," he went on with knitted brows to reject the idea; "a house like
that--one doesn't come all the way from America to live in a house which
has no more atmosphere than that!"

"Ah, but that's the point, Gerald," said Mrs. Foss. "What you call
atmosphere these people avoid as they would an unsanitary odor.
Atmosphere! What would you say if you saw the things Leslie and I have
been helping them to buy and put into it! I love to buy, you know, even
when not for myself. I thought with joy, 'Now I shall at least go
through the form of acquiring certain objects I have lusted after for
years.' Delightful old things Jerome has discovered in antiquarians'
places, and that we shall never be able to afford. Do you think I could
persuade them to take one of these? I represented that the worm-holes
could be stopped up and varnished over, that the missing bits of inlay,
precious crumbs of pearl and ivory, could be replaced, the tapestries
renovated. In vain. They want everything new--hygienically new, fresh,
and shining. And, Gerald, prejudice apart, the idea is not without its
good side. The result is not so bad as you may think. Why, after all,
should my taste, your taste, prevail in their house, will you tell me?"

"For no reason in the world. This liberal view comes the easier to me
that I do not expect ever to see the interesting treasures you may have
collected from Peyron's and Janetti's."

"If it were no worse than that!" put in Leslie, and laughed a covered
laugh.

Mrs. Foss explained, after a like little laugh of her own.

"You see, things that we have seen till we have utt