and old age, some beggar of the road to Pistoia, burned by the suns and the snows, whom some unknown precursor of Donatello had moulded.  And everywhere were Miss Bell’s chosen arms-bells and cymbals.  The largest lifted their bronze clappers at the angles of the room; others formed a chain at the foot of the walls.  Smaller ones ran along the cornices.  There were bells over the hearth, on the cabinets, and on the chairs.  The shelves were full of silver and golden bells.  There were big bronze bells marked with the Florentine lily; bells of the Renaissance, representing a lady wearing a white gown; bells of the dead, decorated with tears and bones; bells covered with symbolical animals and leaves, which had rung in the churches in the time of St. Louis; table-bells of the seventeenth century, having a statuette for a handle; the flat, clear cow-bells of the Ruth Valley; Hindu bells; Chinese bells formed like cylinders—­they had come from all countries and all times, at the magic call of little Miss Bell.

“You look at my speaking arms,” she said to Madame Martin.  “I think that all these Misses Bell are pleased to be here, and I should not be astonished if some day they all began to sing together.  But you must not admire them all equally.  Reserve your purest and most fervent praise for this one.”

And striking with her finger a dark, bare bell which gave a faint sound: 

“This one,” she said, “is a holy village-bell of the fifth century.  She is a spiritual daughter of Saint Paulin de Nole, who was the first to make the sky sing over our heads.  The metal is rare.  Soon I will show to you a gentle Florentine, the queen of bells.  She is coming.  But I bore you, darling, with my babble.  And I bore, too, the good Madame Marmet.  It is wrong.”

She escorted them to their rooms.

An hour later, Madame Martin, rested, fresh, in a gown of foulard and lace, went on the terrace where Miss Bell was waiting for her.  The humid air, warmed by the sun, exhaled the restless sweetness of spring.  Therese, resting on the balustrade, bathed her eyes in the light.  At her feet, the cypress-trees raised their black distaffs, and the olive-trees looked like sheep on the hills.  In the valley, Florence extended its domes, its towers, and the multitudes of its red roofs, through which the Arno showed its undulating line.  Beyond were the soft blue hills.

She tried to recognize the Boboli Gardens, where she had walked at her first visit; the Cascine, which she did not like; the Pitti Palace.  Then the charming infinity of the sky attracted her.  She looked at the forms in the clouds.

After a long silence, Vivian Bell extended her hand toward the horizon.