dinner, arranging vases, all at once; strangest of all, MadamePetrucci had taken the oil-cloth cover from her grand piano, and,. seated before it, was practising her sweet and faded notes, unheedful of the surrounding din and business.

'What's the matter!' cried Goneril.

'We expect the Signorino,' said Miss Prunty. 'And is he going to stay here?'

'Don't be a fool!' snapped that lady; and then she added—' Go into the kitchen and get some of the pasty and some bread and cheese, there's a good girl.'

'All right!' said Goneril.

Madame Petrucci stopped her vocalising. You shall have all the better a dinner to compensate you, my Gonerilla!' She smiled sweetly, and then again became Zerlina.

Goneril cut her lunch, and took it out of doors to share with her companion, Angiolino. He was harvesting the first corn under the olives, but at noon it was too hot to work. Sitting still there was, however, a cool breeze that gently stirred the sharp-edged oliveleaves.

Angiolino lay down at full length and munched his bread and cheese in perfect happiness. Goneril kept shifting about to get herself into the narrow shadow cast by the split and writhen trunk.

'How aggravating it is!' she cried. In England, where there's no sun, there's plenty of shade-and here, where the sun is like a mustard-plaister on one's back, the leaves are all set edgewise on purpose that they shan't cast any shadow!'

Angiolino made no answer to this intelligent remark.

'He is going to sleep again!' cried Goneril, stopping her lunch in despair. He is going to sleep, and there are no end of things I want to know. Angiolino!'

'Sissignora,' murmured the boy.

'Tell me about Signor Graziano.'

'He is our padrone; he is never here.'

'But he is coming to-day. Wake up, Angiolino. I tell you he is on the way!'

'Between life and death there are so many combinations,' drawled the boy, with Tuscan incredulity and sententiousness.

'Ah!' cried the girl, with a little shiver of impatience. Is he young?"

“Chè!

'Is he old, then?'

Neppure !'

'What is he like? He must be something.'

'He's our padrone,' repeated Angiolino, in whose imagination.

Signor Graziano could occupy no other place.

'How stupid you are!' exclaimed the young English girl.

'May be,' said Angiolino stolidly.

'Is he a good padrone? do you like him?'

'Rather!' The boy smiled, and raised himself on one elbow; his eyes twinkled with good-humoured malice.

'My Babbo has much better wine than quel signore,' he said.
'But that is wrong!' cried Goneril, quite shocked.

'Who knows?'

After this, conversation flagged. Goneril tried to imagine what a great musician could be like: long hair of course; her imagination did not get much beyond the hair. He would, of course, be much older now than his portrait. Then she watched Angiolino cutting the corn, and learned how to tie the swathes together. She was occupied in this useful employment when the noise of wheels made them both stop and look over the wall.

'Here's the padrone!' cried the boy.

'Oh, he is old!' said Goneril; he is old and brown, like a coffee-bean.'

'To be old and good is better than youth with malice,' suggested Angiolino, by way of consolation.

'I suppose so,' acquiesced Goneril.

Nevertheless she went in to dinner a little disappointed.

The Signorino was not in the house; he had gone up to the villa. But he had sent a message that later in the evening he intended to pay his respects to his old friends. Madame Petrucci was beautifully dressed in soft black silk, old lace, and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on her starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary that she, likewise, should deck herself in her best. She was much too young and impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of excitement and interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. Goneril, too, was excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had seemed so old and like a coffee-bean. She made no progress in the piece of embroidery she was working as a present for the two old ladies; jumping up and down to look out of the window. When, about eight o'clock, the door-bell rang, Goneril blushed, Madame Petrucci gave a pretty little shriek, Miss Prunty jumped up and rang for the coffee. A moment afterwards the Signorino entered. While he was greeting her hostesses, Goneril cast a rapid glance at him. He was tall for an Italian; rather bent and rather grey; fifty at least, therefore very old. He certainly was brown, but his features were fine and good, and he had a distinguished and benevolent air that somehow made her think of an abbé, a French abbé of the last century. She could quite imagine him saying 'Enfant de St. Louis; montez au ciel!'

Thus far had she got in her meditations, when she felt herself addressed in clear, half-mocking tones

6

And how, this evening, is Madamigella Ruth?'

So he had seen her this evening, binding his corn.

"I am quite well, padrone,' she said, smiling shyly.

The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the secret.

'Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn,' said Miss Prunty, rather severely.

Goneril felt that the time was come for silence and good manners. She sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the ladies treated Signor Graziano with the utmost reverence; even the positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest hint. They talked, too, of Madame Lilli; and always as if she were still young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before Goneril had ever seen the light.

'Mees Goneril is feeling very young!' said the Signorino, suddenly turning his sharp kind eyes upon her.

'Yes,' said Goneril, all confusion.

Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed; the gay serene little lady that nothing ever annoyed.

It is she that is young!' she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought. She is a baby!

6

Oh, I am seventeen

said Goneril.

They all laughed, and seemed at ease again.

'Yes, yes; she is very young,' said the signorino.

But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment. The spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown ́shapeless, dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into mould at the touch of the pitiless sunshine. 'Signorino,' said Madame Petrucci, presently, if you will accompany me, we will perform one of your charming melodies.' Signor Graziano rose, a little stiffly, and led the pretty withered little Diva to the piano.

Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The Signorino's thin white hands made a delicate fluent melody, reminding her of running water under the rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin, penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably true and just, even in this latter weakness. At the end, Signor Graziano stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly Madame Petrucci gasped, a sharp, discordant sound cracked the delicate finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth.

'Bah!' she said, this evening I am abominably husky.'

The tears rose to Goneril's eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks which covered the song's abrupt finale.

And then there came a terrible ordeal. Miss Prunty, anxious to divert the current of her friend's ideas, had suggested that the girl should sing. Signor Graziano and Madame insisted; they would take no refusal.

'Sing, sing, little bird!' cried the old lady.

'But, Madame, how can one-after you?'

The homage in the young girl's voice made the little Diva more good-humouredly insistant than before, and Goneril was too well-bred to make a fuss. She stood by the piano wondering which to choose, the Handels that she always drawled, or the Pinsuti that she always galloped. Suddenly she came by an inspiration.

'Madame,' she pleaded, may I sing one of Angiolino's songs ?> 'Whatever you like, cara mia.'

And standing by the piano, her arms hanging loose, she began a chant such as the peasants use working under the olives. Her voice was small and deep, with a peculiar thick sweetness that suited the song, half-humorous, half-pathetic. These were the words she sang:

Vorrei morir di morte piccinina,
Morta la sera e viva la mattina.
Vorrei morire, e non vorrei morire,
Vorrei veder, chi mi piange e chi ride;
Vorrei morir, e star sulle finestre,
Vorrei veder chi mi cuce la veste;
Vorrei morir, e stare sulla scala,
Vorrei veder chi mi porta la bara;
Vorrei morir, e vorre' alzar la voce,
Vorrei veder chi mi porta la croce.

'Very well chosen, my dear,' said Miss Prunty, when the song was finished.

her.

'And very well sung, my Gonerilla!' cried the old lady.

But the Signorino went up to the piano and shook hands with

'Little Mees Goneril,' he said, 'you have the makings of an artist.'

The two old ladies stared, for after all Goneril's performance had been very simple. You see, they were better versed in music than in human nature.

CHAPTER III.

SI VIEILLESSE POUVAIT!

SIGNOR GRAZIANO's usual week of holiday passed and lengthened into almost two months, and still he stayed on at the villa. The two old ladies were highly delighted.

'At last he has taken my advice!' cried Miss Prunty. 'I always told him those premature grey hairs came from late hours and Roman air.'

Madame Petrucci shook her head and gave a meaning smile. Her friendship with the Signorino had begun when he was a lad and she a charming married woman; like many another friendship, it had begun with a flirtation, and perhaps (who knows?) she thought the flirtation had revived.

As for Goneril, she considered him the most charming old man she had ever known, and liked nothing so much as to go out a walk with him. That, indeed, was one of the Signorino's pleasures; he loved to take the young girl all over his gardens and vineyards, talking to her in the amiable, half-petting, half-mocking manner that he had adopted from the first. And twice a week he gave her a music lesson.

'She has a splendid organ!' he would say.

'Vous croyez?' fluted Madame Petrucci with the vilest accent and the most aggravating smile imaginable.

It was the one hobby of the Signorino's that she regarded with disrespect.

Goneril, too, was a little bored by the music lesson; but, on the other hand, the walks delighted her.

One day Goneril was out with her friend.

"Are the peasants very much afraid of you, Signore?' she' asked.

'Am I such a tyrant?' counter-questioned the Signorino.

No; but they are always begging me to ask you things. Angiolino wants to know if he may go for three days to see his uncle at Fiesole.'

'Of course.'

But why, then, don't they ask you themselves? Is it they think me so cheeky?'

'Perhaps they think I can refuse you nothing.'

“Chè! In that case they would ask Madame Petrucci.'

Goneril ran on to pick some China roses. The Signorino stopped

confounded.

'It is impossible!' he cried; she cannot think I am in love with Giulia! She cannot think I am so old as that!'

The idea seemed horrible to him. He walked on very quickly till he came up to Goneril, who was busy plucking roses in a hedge. 6 For whom are those flowers?' he asked.

'Some are for you, and some are for Madame Petrucci.'

'She is a charming woman, Madame Petrucci.'

'A dear old lady,' murmured Goneril, much more interested in

her posy.

Old do you call her?' said the Signorino rather anxiously. "I should scarcely call her that, though of course she is a good deal older than either of us.'

'Either of us!' Goneril looked up astounded. Could the Signorino have suddenly gone mad?

He blushed a little under his brown skin, that had reminded her of a coffee-bean.

'She is a good ten years older than I am,' he explained.

'Ah well, ten years isn't much.'

'You don't think so?' he cried delighted. Who knows, she might not think even thirty too much.