d of external repair. Through the
middle of it ran a great archway, guarded by copies of the two
Molossian hounds which stand before the Hall of Animals in the Vatican;
beneath the arch, on the right-hand side, was the main entrance to the
house. If you passed straight through, you came out upon a terrace,
where grew a magnificent stone-pine and some robust agaves. The view
hence was uninterrupted, embracing the line of the bay from Posillipo
to Cape Minerva. From the parapet bordering the platform you looked
over a descent of twenty feet, into a downward sloping vineyard.
Formerly the residence of an old Neapolitan family, the villa had gone
the way of many such ancestral abodes, and was now let out among
several tenants.

The Spences were established here for the winter. On the occasion of
his marriage, three years ago, Edward Spence relinquished his
connection with a shipping firm, which he represented in Manchester,
and went to live in London; a year and a half later he took his wife to
Italy, where they had since remained. He was not wealthy, but had means
sufficient to his demands and prospects. Thinking for himself in most
matters, he chose to abandon money-making at the juncture when most men
deem it incumbent upon them to press their efforts in that direction;
business was repugnant to him, and he saw no reason why he should
sacrifice his own existence to put a possible family in more than easy
circumstances, He had the inclinations of a student, but was untroubled
by any desire to distinguish himself, freedom from the demands of the
office meant to him the possibility of living where he chose, and
devoting to his books the best part of the day instead of its
fragmentary leisure. His choice in marriage was most happy. Eleanor
Spence had passed her maiden life in Manchester, but with parents of
healthy mind and of more literature than generally falls to the lot of
a commercial family. Pursuing a natural development, she allied herself
with her husband's freedom of intellect, and found her nature's
opportunities in the life which was to him most suitable. By a rare
chance, she was the broader-minded of the two, the more truly
impartial. Her emancipation from dogma had been so gradual, so
unconfused by external pressure, that from her present standpoint she
could look back with calmness and justice on all the stages she had
left behind. With her cousin Miriam she could sympathize in a way
impossible to Spence, wh