She did not see the pleasant glance that fell on her from the eyes of the gentleman at her side. She was looking down, a little hurt, she hardly knew why. For was it not a matter understood that her home was in Italy, and theirs in America?
“Why, you,” said Isabel—“you will be in Casa Ottant’Otto, thousands of miles away, and we shall be writing you all about it.”
“Not so!” Mr. Vane said. “She will be with us at the time, I think, and will correct all our mistakes, and reward all our well-doing with her approbation.”
“There, that sounds comfortable,” the lady said, smiling. “I was really feeling neglected and left out in the cold.”
They had come to the street that encircles the town, and on the outside of which a row of houses hangs on the mountain-edge. In one of these they were to spend the night, and, as she spoke, the Signora looked
up brightly, and beckoned some one in a window above to come down and open the door for them.
Mr. Vane spoke rather hastily in answer to her remark, and apparently for her ear alone. “If you should be outside, the cold will then be inside the circle,” he said. “It is you who are to choose.”
“Oh! thank you,” she replied lightly. “And now mind the steps. They are rather dark.”
The street from which they entered this house was so narrow, and the houses so joined, that they seemed to be still in the heart of the town; but when they had passed the dusky stairs, and entered the long, low sala at the head of them, they found the place like a nest in a tree-top. The mountain-side dropped sheer from under the very windows, and the view swept round from Rome and the sea to Palestrina and the mountains.
In this sala the whole family of the padrone had assembled to welcome and stare at the strangers before giving the room up to their use. A dozen or so smiling faces, full of good-will and curiosity, clustered about without the slightest sign of any thought that they might be intruding, or that there was to be any limit to the free use of their eyes. An old woman leaning on a cane muttered unintelligible blessings and made innumerable little bows right and left, a hale young matron talked and welcomed, a servant smiled unceasingly, a young girl with a baby in her arms asked abrupt questions in a loud voice, and children of all ages filled up the gaps.