In the first group was a girl, who hung back a little from the rest, and looked curiously up at all the houses, as if looking for some one--a tall, fair-haired girl, with a blue veil tied over her hat. She looked tired, but eager, with more interest in her face than any of the others showed. Frances smiled to herself with the half-superiority which a resident is apt to feel: a girl must be very simple indeed, if she thought the houses on the Marina worth looking at, Frances thought. But she did not pause in her quick walk. The Durants lived at the other end of the Marina, in a little villa built upon a terrace over an olive garden--a low house with no particular beauty, but possessing also a loggia turned to the west, the luxury of building on the Riviera. Here the whole family were seated, the old clergyman with a large English newspaper, which he was reading deliberately from end to end; his wife with a work-basket full of articles to mend; and Tasie at the little tea-table, pouring out the tea. Frances was received with a little clamour of satisfaction, for she was a favourite. “Sit here, my dear.” “Come this way, close to me, for you know I am getting a little hard of hearing.” They had always been kind to her, but never, she thought, had she been received with so much cordiality as now. “Have you come by yourself, Frances? and along the Marina? I think you should make Domenico or his wife walk with you, when you go through the Marina, my dear.” “Why, Mrs Durant? I have always done it. Even Mariuccia says it does not matter, as I am an English girl.” “Ah, that may be true; but English girls are not like American girls. I assure you they are taken a great deal more care of. If you ever go home----” “And how is your poor father to-day, Frances?” said Mrs Durant. “Oh, papa is very well. He is not such a poor father. There is nothing the matter with him. At least, there is nothing _new_ the matter with him,” said Frances, with a little impatience. “No,” said the clergyman, looking up over the top of his spectacles and shaking his head. “Nothing _new_ the matter with him. I believe that.” “----If you ever go home,” resumed Mrs Durant; “and of course some time you will go home----” “I think very likely I never shall,” said the girl. “Papa never talks of going home. He says home is here.” “That is all very well for the present moment, my dear; but I feel sure, for my part, that one time or other it will happen as I say; and then you must not let them suppose you have been a little savage, going about as you liked here.” “I don’t think any one would care much, Mrs Durant; and I am not going; so you need not be afraid.”