h side, and the arrival of a "nice" English family always put her
in excellent spirits. She then exhibited herself as an Anglicized
matron, perfectly familiar with all the requirements, great and little,
of her guests, and, when minutiae were once settled, capable of meeting
ladies and gentlemen on terms of equality in her drawing-room or at her
table, where she always presided. Indeed, there was much true
refinement in Mrs. Gluck. You had not been long in her house before she
found an opportunity of letting you know that she prided herself on
connection with the family of the great musician, and under her roof
there was generally some one who played or sang well. It was her dire
that all who sat at her dinner-table--the English people, at all
events--should be in evening dress. She herself had no little art in
adorning herself so as to appear, what she was, a lady, and yet not to
conflict with the ladies whose presence honoured her.

In the drawing-room, a few days after the arrival of Mrs. Lessingham
and her niece, several members of the house hold were assembled in
readiness for the second dinner-bell. There was Frau Wohlgemuth, a
middle-aged lady with severe brows, utilizing spare moments over a
German work on Greek sculpture. Certain plates in the book had caught
the eye of Mrs. Bradshaw, with the result that she regarded this
innocent student as a person of most doubtful character, who, if in
ignorance admitted to a respectable boardinghouse, should certainly
have been got rid of as soon as the nature of her reading had been
discovered. Frau Wohlgemuth had once or twice been astonished at the
severe look fixed upon her by the buxom English lady, but happily would
never receive an explanation of this silent animus. Then there was
Fraulein Kriel, who had unwillingly incurred even more of Mrs.
Bradshaw's displeasure, in that she, an unmarried person, had actually
looked over the volume together with its possessor, not so much as
blushing when she found herself observed by strangers. The remaining
persons were an English family, a mother and three daughters, their
name Denyer.

Mrs. Denyer was florid, vivacious, and of a certain size. She had seen
much of the world, and prided herself on cosmopolitanism; the one thing
with which she could not dispense was intellectual society. This would
be her second winter at Naples, but she gave her acquaintances to
understand that Italy was by no means the country of her choice;