Marie laughed. "Selfish man! I know what's in your head. You'd go out and leave Mary and me to entertain your dear cousin and her friend. No, I won't have Miss Bland think I'm jealous or inhospitable—for of course she'd blame me. She knows we never go out for luncheon. Unfortunately I told her. I'll write a line to send back by her messenger, to say lunch by all means."
"Very well, if you think you must." Angelo spoke with gloomy resignation.
"Dear Mary, you write," said Marie lazily. "You've got paper and a stylo, and she doesn't know my hand. I'm too comfortable to move."
Mary put aside her letter to Vanno which must catch the next post, and scribbled a few lines to Miss Bland.
"Will you sign if I bring you the pen?" she asked.
"No, thanks. I give you leave to forge my name. It will soon be your own, so you may as well practise writing it," said Marie. "Just put the initial 'M.'"
The girl obeyed. "M. Della Robbia," she wrote, forming the letters almost lovingly. How strange to think that before long that would be her own name! Mary Della Robbia! The sound was very sweet to her, though to be a princess was of no great importance. If Vanno were a peasant, to become his wife would make her a queen.
When the answer was ready, Americo received it upon his little tray.
"Two ladies for luncheon, you may tell the chef," said Marie.
"All right, Highness. And other Highness, I was to make you know from the gardener, one fox have bin catched in a trap on the way to eat the rabbits of the semaphore. If the Highness wish to visit him, he is there for this morning."