CHAPTER I.
"Pe far la to vendetta, Sta sigur', vasta anche ella." -- Vocero du Niolo.
Early in the month of October, 181-, Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil, a distinguished Irish officer of the English army, alighted with his daughter at the Hotel Beauveau, Marseilles, on their return from a tour in Italy.

The perpetual and universal admiration of enthusiastic travellers has produced a sort of reaction, and many tourists, in their desire to appear singular, now take the _nil admirari_ of Horace for their motto.

To this dissatisfied class the colonel's only daughter, Miss Lydia, belonged.

"The Transfiguration" has seemed to her mediocre, and Vesuvius in eruption an effect not greatly superior to that produced by the Birmingham factory chimneys.

Her great objection to Italy, on the whole, was its lack of local colour and character.