th a shawl for Carmela.

So the hours passed.

BOOK II.--FLORENCE

CHAPTER I

October can be cold enough sometimes in the Val d'Arno when the snow
falls on the Apennines, and the woods of Vallombrosa are sere, and
Florence, the flower city, lies then at the mercy of the winds. Mamie
Whittaker, who, in her own phrase, "hated to be blown about anyhow,"
had not been out all day. She lolled in an armchair before a crackling
fire of olive wood in the room that she "lit with herself when alone,"
though scarcely in the Tennysonian sense. Hers was a vivid
personality, and older women who disliked her called her flamboyant,
and referred to an evident touch of the tar-brush that would make her
socially impossible in America though it passed unnoticed in Italy.
Her age was seventeen, and she dressed after Carmen to please herself,
and read Gyp with the same intention. She was absorbed now in _Les
Amoureux_, and had to be told twice that her cousin had come before
she would look up.

"Miss Marvel? Show her in."

She rose and went forward to greet her relative, whom she had not
seen for some years, and the two met at the door and kissed each other
with enthusiasm.

"Edna! My! Well, you have not grown anyway. What a tiny thing! Come
and sit down right here." She rang for tea while her visitor slowly
and rather shyly divested herself of her sables and laid them on a
side table. Edna Marvel was the elder of the two by three years, but
she was so small that she seemed a mere child. Her sallow little face
resembled that of a tired monkey, yet it had an elfin charm, and her
hands were beautiful as carved toys of ivory made in the East for a
king's son to play with. They might hold a man's heart perhaps, but
Mamie did not notice them, her own allurements being of more obvious
description.

She thought Edna was real homely, and her spirits rose accordingly.
"Where are you staying?"

"At the Bristol. Poppa guessed we would take a villa later on if we
felt like it."

Mamie rang again. "Bring some more cakes, and tell Miss Agar to come
and pour out the tea."

"Who is Miss Agar?"

"My companion, a sort of governess person. She takes me out walks, and
sits by when my music-master comes, and so forth. She is new, and she
won't do, but I may as well make her useful while she stays."

"Why won't she do?"

"Oh, she just won't. Momma don't like her much, and I'm not singing
her praises."

Edna looked curiously at