And here came this girl, walking through his dream, to remind him of what 'woman,' average virtuous woman of the New or the Old World, is really like.
All the same, she walked well,--carried her head remarkably well.

There was a free and springing youth in all her movements that he could not but follow with eyes that noticed all such things as she passed through the old trees, and the fragments of Graeco-Roman sculpture placed among them.
* * * * * That afternoon Lucy Foster was sitting by herself in the garden of the villa.

She had a volume of sermons by a famous Boston preacher in her hand, and was alternately reading--and looking.

Miss Manisty had told her that some visitors from Rome would probably arrive between four and five o'clock, and close to her indeed the little butler, running hither and thither with an anxiety, an effusion that no English servant would have deigned to show, was placing chairs and tea-tables and putting out tea-things.
Presently indeed Alfredo approached the silent lady sitting under the trees, on tip-toe.
Would the signorina be so very kind as to come and look at the tables?
The signora--so all the household called Miss Manisty--had given directions--but he, Alfredo, was not sure--and it would be so sad if when she came out she were not satisfied! Lucy rose and went to look.

She discovered some sugar-tongs missing.
Alfredo started like the wind in search of them, running down the avenue with short, scudding steps, his coat-tails streaming behind him.
What a child-like eagerness to please! Yet he had been five years in the cavalry; he was admirably educated; he wrote a better hand than Manisty's own, and when his engagement at the villa came to an end he was already, thanks to a very fair scientific knowledge, engaged as manager in a firework factory in Rome.
Lucy's look pursued the short flying figure of the butler with a smiling kindness.