“My dear sister, you can’t run on like that.  You don’t buy a pair of gloves in two hours, much less a baby.”

“Three hours, then, or four; or make him learn English ways.  At Florence we get a nurse—­”

“But, Harriet,” said Miss Abbott, “what if at first he was to refuse?”

“I don’t know the meaning of the word,” said Harriet impressively.  “I’ve told the landlady that Philip and I only want our rooms one night, and we shall keep to it.”

“I dare say it will be all right.  But, as I told you, I thought the man I met on the Rocca a strange, difficult man.”

“He’s insolent to ladies, we know.  But my brother can be trusted to bring him to his senses.  That woman, Philip, whom you saw will carry the baby to the hotel.  Of course you must tip her for it.  And try, if you can, to get poor Lilia’s silver bangles.  They were nice quiet things, and will do for Irma.  And there is an inlaid box I lent her—­lent, not gave—­to keep her handkerchiefs in.  It’s of no real value; but this is our only chance.  Don’t ask for it; but if you see it lying about, just say—­”

“No, Harriet; I’ll try for the baby, but for nothing else.  I promise to do that tomorrow, and to do it in the way you wish.  But tonight, as we’re all tired, we want a change of topic.  We want relaxation.  We want to go to the theatre.”

“Theatres here?  And at such a moment?”

“We should hardly enjoy it, with the great interview impending,” said Miss Abbott, with an anxious glance at Philip.

He did not betray her, but said, “Don’t you think it’s better than sitting in all the evening and getting nervous?”

His sister shook her head.  “Mother wouldn’t like it.  It would be most unsuitable—­almost irreverent.  Besides all that, foreign theatres are notorious.  Don’t you remember those letters in the ’Church Family Newspaper’?”

“But this is an opera—­’Lucia di Lammermoor’—­Sir Walter Scott—­classical, you know.”

Harriet’s face grew resigned.  “Certainly one has so few opportunities of hearing music.  It is sure to be very bad.  But it might be better than sitting idle all the evening.  We have no book, and I lost my crochet at Florence.”

“Good.  Miss Abbott, you are coming too?”

“It is very kind of you, Mr. Herriton.  In some ways I should enjoy it; but—­excuse the suggestion—­I don’t think we ought to go to cheap seats.”

“Good gracious me!” cried Harriet, “I should never have thought of that.  As likely as not, we should have tried to save money and sat among the most awful people.  One keeps on forgetting this is Italy.”

“Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats—­”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Philip, smiling at his timorous, scrupulous women-kind.  “We’ll go as we are, and buy the best we can get.  Monteriano is not formal.”