There were some fine old trees, lindens, acacias, chestnuts, a flat-topped Lombardy pine, a darkling ilex, besides the willow that overhung the river, and the poplars that stiffly stood along its border.  Then there was the peacock-blue river itself, dancing and singing as it sped away, with a thousand diamonds flashing on its surface—­floating, sinking, rising —­where the sun caught its ripples.  There were some charming bits of greensward.  There was a fountain, plashing melodious coolness, in a nimbus of spray which the sun touched to rainbow pinks and yellows.  There were vivid parterres of flowers, begonia and geranium.  There were oleanders, with their heady southern perfume; there were pomegranate-blossoms, like knots of scarlet crepe; there were white carnations, sweet-peas, heliotrope, mignonette; there were endless roses.  And there were birds, birds, birds.  Everywhere you heard their joyous piping, the busy flutter of their wings.  There were goldfinches, blackbirds, thrushes, with their young—­the plumpest, clumsiest, ruffle-feathered little blunderers, at the age ingrat, just beginning to fly, a terrible anxiety to their parents—­and there were also (I regret to own) a good many rowdy sparrows.  There were bees and bumblebees; there were brilliant, dangerous-looking dragonflies; there were butterflies, blue ones and white ones, fluttering in couples; there were also (I am afraid) a good many gadflies—­but che volete?  Who minds a gadfly or two in Italy?  On the other side of the house there were fig-trees and peach-trees, and artichokes holding their heads high in rigid rows; and a vine, heavy with great clusters of yellow grapes, was festooned upon the northern wall.

The morning air was ineffably sweet and keen—­penetrant, tonic, with moist, racy smells, the smell of the good brown earth, the smell of green things and growing things.  The dew was spread over the grass like a veil of silver gossamer, spangled with crystals.  The friendly country westward, vineyards and white villas, laughed in the sun at the Gnisi, sulking black in shadow to the east.  The lake lay deep and still, a dark sapphire.  And away at the valley’s end, Monte Sfiorito, always insubstantial-seeming, showed pale blue-grey, upon a sky in which still lingered some of the flush of dawn.

It was a surprisingly jolly garden, true enough.  But though Peter remained in it all day long—­though he haunted the riverside, and cast a million desirous glances, between the trees, and up the lawns, towards Castel Ventirose—­he enjoyed no briefest vision of the Duchessa di Santangiolo.

Nor the next day; nor the next.

“Why does n’t that old dowager ever come down and look after her river?” he asked Marietta.  “For all the attention she gives it, the water might be undermining her property on both sides.”

“That old dowager—?” repeated Marietta, blank.

“That old widow woman—­my landlady—­the Duchessa Vedova di Santangiolo.”