The Senator showed his coupons somewhat truculently, but they were received as things of price with disarming bows and real gladness.

We were led through rambling passages into lofty white chambers, with marble floors and iron bedsteads, full of simplicity and cleanliness, where we removed all recollections of Paris without being obliged to consider a stuffy carpet or satin-covered furniture.

Italy, in the persons of the _portier_ and the chambermaid, laid hold of us with intelligible smiles, and we were charmed.

Inside, the place was full of long free lines and cool polished surfaces, and pleasant curves.

Outside, a thick-fronded palm swayed in the evening wind against a climbing hill of many-tinted, many-windowed houses, in all the soft colours we knew of before.