Then she waved her disfranchised guardian a kiss.
"Addio, Commendatore. I 'll write to you from Venice."
II
It was gay June weather, in a deep green English park: a park in the south of England, near the sea, where parks are deepest and greenest, and June weather, when it is n't grave, is gaiest. Blackbirds were dropping their liquid notes, thrushes were singing, hidden in the trees. Here and there, in spaces enclosed by hurdles, sheep browsed or drowsed, still faintly a-blush from recent shearing. The may was in bloom, the tardy may, and the laburnum. The sun shone ardently, and the air was quick with the fragrant responses of the earth.
A hundred yards up the avenue, Anthony Craford stopped his fly, a shabby victoria, piled with the manifold leather belongings of a traveller, and dismounted.
"I 'll walk the rest of the way," he said to the flyman, giving him his fare. "Drive on to the house. The servants will take charge of the luggage."
"Yes, sir," answered the flyman, briskly, and flicked his horse: whereat, displaying a mettle one was by no means prepared for, the horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop, and the ancient vehicle behind him followed with a succession of alarming leaps and lurches.
"See," declaimed a voice, in a sort of whimsical recitative,
"See how the young cabs bound,
As to the tabor's sound,—"
a full-bodied baritone, warm and suave, that broke, at the end, into a note or two of laughter.