This lady, also, Peter understood very well.

He thought it likely she sat in rocking chairs a great deal at home and travelled to improve her mind.
She had, moreover, a general air of proclaiming the unwarrantableness of railway acquaintances, which alone would have prevented Peter from asking the girl, as he absurdly wanted to, if they had painted the new school-house yet, and if there had been much water that year in Miller's pond.
As she sat so with her round hat pushed askew by the window-glass, there was some delicate reminder about her that streaked the rich Italian landscape with vestiges of Bloombury.
He looked out of the window where she looked and saw the white straight-sided villas change to green-shuttered farmhouses, and fine old Roman roads lead on to Harmony.

It was all there for him in its unexpectedness, as freshly touching as those reminders of his mother which he came upon occasionally where Ellen kept them laid by in lavender; as if the girl had shaken from the folds of her jacket of unmistakable Bloombury cut, Youth for him--his own--anybody's Youth--no limp and yellowed keepsake, but all crisply done up and ready for putting on.

So sharp for the moment was his sense of accepting the invitation to put it on with her as the best possible traveller's guise, especially for seeing Venice in, that catching the speculative eye of the large lady turned upon him, he quailed sensibly.

She had the air of having detected him in an attempt to establish a relation with her companion on the ground of their common youngness, and finding herself much more a match for him both in years and in respect to their common origin.