‘I know he did.  I heard it.’

‘Why didn’t you tell him he might come?’

’Because we are not in Boston, Livy.  It might be the most horrible thing in the world to do here in Florence; and it may make a difference, because Uncle Jonas is minister.’

’Why should that make a difference?  Do you mean that one isn’t to see one’s own friends?  That must be nonsense.’

‘But he isn’t a friend, Livy.’

’It seems to me as if I’d known him for ever.  That soft, monotonous voice, which never became excited and never disagreeable, is as familiar to me as though I had lived with it all my life.’

‘I thought him very pleasant.’

’Indeed, you did, Carry.  And he thought you pleasant too.  Doesn’t it seem odd?  You were mending his glove for him this very afternoon, just as if he were your brother.’

‘Why shouldn’t I mend his glove?’

’Why not, indeed?  He was entitled to have everything mended after getting us such a good dinner at Bologna.  By-the-bye, you never paid him.’

‘Yes, I did when you were not by.’

’I wonder who he is!  C. G.!  That fine man in the brown coat was his servant, you know.  I thought at first that C. G. must have been cracked, and that the tall man was his keeper.’

‘I never knew any one less like a madman.’

’No but the man was so queer.  He did nothing, you know.  We hardly saw him, if you remember, at Turin.  All he did was to tie the shawls at Bologna.  What can any man want with another man about with him like that, unless he is cracked either in body or mind?’

‘You’d better ask C. G. yourself.’

’I shall never see C. G. again, I suppose.  I should like to see him again.  I guess you would too, Carry.  Eh?’

‘Of course, I should why not?’

’I never knew a man so imperturbable, and who had yet so much to say for himself.  I wonder what he is!  Perhaps he’s on business, and that man was a kind of a clerk.’

‘He had livery buttons on,’ said Carry.

‘And does that make a difference?’

‘I don’t think they put clerks into livery, even in England.’

‘Nor yet mad doctors,’ said Olivia.  ’Well, I like him very much; and the only thing against him is that he should have a man, six feet high, going about with him doing nothing.’

’You’ll make me angry, Livy, if you talk in that way.  It’s uncharitable.’

‘In what way?’

‘About a mad doctor.’

‘It’s my belief,’ said Olivia, ’that he’s an English swell, a lord, or a duke and it’s my belief, too, that he’s in love with you.’

‘It’s my belief, Livy, that you’re a regular ass;’ and so the conversation was ended on that occasion.

On the next day, about noon, the American Minister, as a part of the duty which he owed to his country, read in a publication of that day, issued for the purpose, the names of the new arrivals at Florence.  First and foremost was that of the Honourable Charles Glascock, with his suite, at the York Hotel, en route to join his father, Lord Peterborough, at Naples.  Having read the news first to himself, the minister read it out loud in the presence of his nieces.