were not complimentary; nevertheless, Vittoria listened with pleased ears, as one listens by a brookside near an old home, hearing a music of memory rather than common words.  They talked of heat, of appetite, of chill, of thirst, of the splendour of the prospect, of the anticipations of good hotel accommodation below, of the sadness superinduced by the reflection that in these days people were found everywhere, and poetry was thwarted; again of heat, again of thirst, of beauty, and of chill.  There was the enunciation of matronly advice; there was the outcry of girlish insubordination; there were sighings for English ale, and namings of the visible ranges of peaks, and indicatings of geographical fingers to show where Switzerland and Piedmont met, and Austria held her grasp on Lombardy; and “to this point we go to-night; yonder to-morrow; farther the next day,” was uttered, soberly or with excitement, as befitted the age of the speaker.

Among these tourists there was one very fair English lady, with long auburn curls of the traditionally English pattern, and the science of Paris displayed in her bonnet and dress; which, if not as graceful as severe admirers of the antique in statuary or of the mediaeval in drapery demand, pleads prettily to be thought so, and commonly succeeds in its object, when assisted by an artistic feminine manner.  Vittoria heard her answer to the name of Mrs. Sedley.  She had once known her as a Miss Adela Pole.  Amidst the cluster of assiduous gentlemen surrounding this lady it was difficult for Vittoria’s stolen glances to discern her husband; and the moment she did discern him she became as indifferent to him as was his young wife, by every manifestation of her sentiments.  Mrs. Sedley informed her lord that it was not expected of him to care, or to pretend to care, for such scenes as the Motterone exhibited; and having dismissed him to the shade of an umbrella near the provision baskets, she took her station within a few steps of Vittoria, and allowed her attendant gentlemen to talk while she remained plunged in a meditative rapture at the prospect.  The talk indicated a settled scheme for certain members of the party to reach Milan from the Como road.  Mrs. Sedley was asked if she expected her brother to join her here or in Milan.

“Here, if a man’s promises mean anything,” she replied languidly.

She was told that some one waved a handkerchief to them from below.

“Is he alone?” she said; and directing an operaglass upon the slope of the mountain, pursued, as in a dreamy disregard of circumstances:  “That is Captain Gambier.  My brother Wilfrid has not kept his appointment.  Perhaps he could not get leave from the General; perhaps he is married; he is engaged to an Austrian Countess, I have heard.  Captain Gambier did me the favour to go round to a place called Stresa to meet him.  He has undertaken the journey for nothing.  It is the way with all journeys though this” (the lady had softly reverted to her rapture) “this is too exquisite!  Nature at least does not deceive.”