conveyance up to the city on the mountain, where they had been
told they would find better quarters; and there they had stayed
two or three days. It was one of the miniature Italian cities
with a high church, a pretentious piazza, a few narrow streets
and little palaces, perched all compact and complete, on the top
of a mountain, within an enclosure of walls hardly larger than
an English kitchen garden. But it was full of life and noise,
echoing all day and all night with the sounds of feet and
voices.

The Cafe of the simple inn where they stayed was the meeting-place
of the notabilities of the little city; the _Sindaco_, the
_avvocato_, the doctor, and a few others; and among them they
noticed a beautiful, slim, talkative old man, with bright black
eyes and snow-white hair--tail and straight and still with
the figure of a youth, although the waiter told them with
pride that the _Conte_ was _molto vecchio_--would in fact be
eighty in the following year. He was the last of his family, the
waiter added--they had once been great and rich people--but he
had no descendants; in fact the waiter mentioned with complacency,
as if it were a story on which the locality prided itself, that
the _Conte_ had been unfortunate in love, and had never married.

The old gentleman, however, seemed cheerful enough; and it was
plain that he took an interest in the strangers, and wished to
make their acquaintance. This was soon effected by the friendly
waiter; and after a little talk the old man invited them to
visit his villa and garden which were just outside the walls of
the town. So the next afternoon, when the sun began to descend,
and they saw in glimpses through doorways and windows blue