We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley towards the sea.
"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called Pigna."
"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.
"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.
Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.
On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came upon a boy and girl sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe, and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract her attention; but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and the girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did not care for music, we drove onward; but, as far as we could see, the Italian girl still stood in the centre of the road, gazing after the carriages.
"What do you suppose is in her mind?" I said. "Envy?"
"Hardly," said Verney. "To her, probably, Miss Trescott is like a being from another world—a saint or Madonna."
"Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons!" said Miss Elaine, in soft reproach. "Besides, it is irreligious, and you promised me you would not be irreligious."
Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of course overheard by Mrs. Clary and myself. It was rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds brought up in this way—the little sentimental speeches he had made to Miss Elaine in the remote past—i.e., before Janet arrived. But he was obliged to bear it.