They drove on for some time, and at length reached Civita Castellana.  Here they drove up to the hotel, and the ladies got out and went up to their apartments.  They had three rooms up stairs, two of which looked out into the street, while the third was in the rear.  At the front windows was a balcony.

The ladies now disrobed themselves, and their maids assisted them to perform the duties of a very simple toilet.  Mrs. Willoughby’s was first finished.  So she walked over to the window, and looked out into the street.

It was not a very interesting place, nor was there much to be seen; but she took a lazy, languid interest in the sight which met her eyes.  There were the two carriages.  The horses were being led to water.  Around the carriages was a motley crowd, composed of the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind, forming that realm of beggars which from immemorial ages has flourished in Italy.  With these was intermingled a crowd of ducks, geese, goats, pigs, and ill-looking, mangy, snarling curs.

Upon these Mrs. Willoughby looked for some time, when at length her ears were arrested by the roll of wheels down the street.  A carriage was approaching, in which there were two travelers.  One hasty glance sufficed, and she turned her attention once more to the ducks, geese, goats, dogs, and beggars.  In a few minutes the crowd was scattered by the newly-arrived carriage.  It stopped.  A man jumped out.  For a moment he looked up, staring hard at the windows.  That moment was enough.  Mrs. Willoughby had recognized him.

She rushed away from the windows.  Lady Dalrymple and Ethel were in this room, and Minnie in the one beyond.  All were startled by Mrs. Willoughby’s exclamation, and still more by her looks.

“Oh!” she cried.

“What?” cried they.  “What is it?”

“He’s there! He’s there!”

“Who? who?” they cried, in alarm.

“That horrid man!”

Lady Dalrymple and Ethel looked at one another in utter horror.

As for Minnie, she burst into the room, peeped out of the windows, saw “that horrid man,” then ran back, then sat down, then jumped up, and then burst into a peal of the merriest laughter that ever was heard from her.

“Oh, I’m so glad!  I’m so glad!” she exclaimed.  “Oh, it’s so awfully funny.  Oh, I’m _awfully funny!”

But while Minnie laughed thus, the others looked at each other in still greater consternation, and for some time there was not one of them who knew what to say.

But Lady Dalrymple again threw herself in the gap.

“You need not feel at all nervous, my dears,” said she, gravely.  “I do not think that this person can give us any trouble.  He certainly can not intrude upon us in these apartments, and on the highway, you know, it will be quite as difficult for him to hold any communication with us.  So I really don’t see any cause for alarm on your part, nor do I see why dear Minnie should exhibit such delight.”