"Good morning, Prospero," said Annunziata.
"Good morning, Wide-awake," responded John.
He was in the octagonal room on the piano nobile of the castle, where his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond; and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved and gilded doorway.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," she said, plaintive.
"Poor sweetheart," he commiserated her. "And can't you find me?"
"I couldn't," said Annunziata, bearing on the tense. "But I have found you now."
"Oh? Have you? Where?" asked he.
"Where?" cried she, with a disdainful movement. "But here, of course."
"I wouldn't be too cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "Here is a mighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then there would be here, and here would be somewhere else."
"No," said Annunziata, with resolution. "Where a person is, that is always here."