Her pale hair, where it showed beneath her hood, was fine as silk and as glossy; her eyes had the colour of an Italian sky at noon, and her cheeks the delicate tinge of a carnation.

The many laces and ribbons, knotted about her dress in a manner most mysterious to Wogan, added to her gossamer appearance; and, in a word, she seemed to him something too flowerlike for the world's rough usage.
"I must have a postillion," she continued.
"Presently, madam," said the landlord, smiling with all a Tuscan peasant's desire to please.

"In a minute.

In less than a minute." He looked complacently about him as though at any moment now a crop of postillions might be expected to flower by the roadside.

The lady turned from him with a stamp of the foot and saw that Wogan was curiously regarding her carriage.