mystery? My sweet child, we tread among mysteries. We
are at the centre of a coil of mysteries. _Who is the young woman?_ And
how--consider well upon this--how does it happen that the young woman
speaks English? Mysterious, indeed!"

He rose, and bowed, with ceremony.

"But we burn daylight. I must not detain you longer. Suffer me to
imprint upon your hand of velvet a token of my high regard."

And taking Annunziata's frail little white hand, he bent low to kiss it;
and though his blue eyes were full of laughter, I think that behind the
laughter there was a great deal of real fondness and admiration.

IV

Half-way down the long straight avenue of ilex-trees that led from the
castle to the principal entrance of the garden, Annunziata, in her
pale-grey pinafore (that was so like a peplum), with her hair waving
about her shoulders, was curled up in the corner of a marble bench,
gazing with great intentness at a white flower that lay in her lap. It
was the warmest and the peacefullest moment of the afternoon. The sun
shone steadily; not a leaf stirred, not a shadow wavered; and the
intermittent piping of a blackbird, somewhere in the green world
overhead, seemed merely to give a kind of joyous rhythm to the silence.

"Mercy upon me! Who ever saw so young a maiden so deeply lost in
thought!" exclaimed a voice.

Annunziata, her reverie thus disturbed, raised a pair of questioning
eyes.

A lady was standing before her, smiling down upon her, a lady in a frock
of lilac-coloured muslin, with a white sunshade.

Annunziata, who, when she liked, could be the very pink of formal
politeness, rose, dropped a courtesy, and said: "Buon giorno,
Signorina."

"Buon giorno," responded the smiling lady. "Buon giorno--and a penny for
your thoughts. But I'm sure you could never, never tell what it was you
were thinking so hard about."

"Scusi," said Annunziata. "I was trying to think of the name of this
flower." She stooped and picked up the flower, which had slipped from
her lap to

My Friend Prospero

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