rry laughter when
she saw me.

Her great wine-brown eyes were laughing, her full, cupid-lips were
laughing, and more than all, the two deep, round dimples in the olive
cheeks were laughing. Even the little rings of black hair on her low
forehead seemed to quiver with mirth, as her head moved with quick,
bird-like gestures. She was dressed all in grey, and the cut-steel
buttons on her dress twinkled as if they too were in the joke.

"Fancy meeting you here, of all places!" she said, in her pretty
English, lisping but correct. "It is a good gift from the saints. We
have had such stupid adventures, and we have been so bored."

"We" were evidently the handsome, slightly moustached women of
thirty-five, and the thin, darkly dour man of fifty who were with the
Contessa in the carriage; and a moment later she had introduced me to
the Baron and Baronessa di Nivoli. I echoed the name with some
interest. "Have I the pleasure of meeting the inventor of the new
air-ship which is so much talked about?" I asked.

"That is my brother Paolo," replied the Baron, unbending slightly.

"He will join us later," added the Baronessa, with a quick look at the
pretty and rich little widow which betrayed to me a secret. She then
turned a dark, disapproving gaze upon me which told another, and I
could have laughed aloud. "They want to nobble my poor little Contessa
for brother-aeronaut, and they don't countenance chance meetings with
strange young men," I said to myself, greatly amused. "If they can see
through the dust, and suspect in me a possible rival for the absent,
they have sharp eyes, or keen imaginations, and I may be in for a
little fun."

We were at the hotel door, and I was allowed to help the Contessa out,
though the elder lady preferred the aid of the concierge. For the
moment Gaeta had forgotten the claims of her companions, and
remembered only mine. It is a butterfly way of hers to forget easily,
and flutter with delight in a new corner of the garden, just because
it is new.

"You are staying here? How nice!" she exclaimed, without giving me
time to answer. "We should have arrived last night, but we had an
accident to our carriage--a broken wheel. It was coming down from the
Hospice of St. Bernard, which we had been to visit--oh, not to please
_me_, do not think it. It was the Baron, here. In dim ages his people
and the saint were cousins, though the idea of a saint having cousins
seems actually sacrilegious, doesn't it?