A small, brown-skinned child was squeezing its way inside, and a sturdy peasant woman, carrying a baby and a basket, was pushing her way out.
"Buon' giorno, Teresa mia!" cried Aunt Clo, waving her hand.
The woman smiled in reply.
"This is the country of the Miraculous Virgin," Miss Stellenthorpe told Lily. "The Madonna of Genazzano. The statue is in the cathedral and we have a wonderful procession once a year. Ah! ce cher Genazzano!"
Tenderness radiated from her face and voice.
The waggonette drew up before a small iron fence that enclosed a tiny stone house, built along the four sides of a square. A little cloister ran all round the house, and the space in the middle formed a courtyard where shrubs flowered in painted green pots.
There was no garden, other than the small and apparently untended courtyard, but within the house, Aunt Clo waved through the window at a thick trellis covered with vine tendrils and fig-leaves, and framing a sturdy arbour beneath which stood a rustic bench and table, and said:
"La Tonnelle."
Beyond lay a sloping track ground on which the vines grew round poles that stood in long, converging lines, reminding Lily of a miniature edition of a Kentish hop-field.
"Truly have not my lines fallen to me in pleasant places?" Aunt Clo enquired musingly. It was perhaps a slight relief to Lily that her tone required no reply. A bald negative or affirmative seemed so inadequate a rejoinder to Aunt Clo's rounded, elaborate periods.