At this point, in revenge for her indifference, the diplomatist remained, in his turn, silent, until Eve, who could bear it no longer, turned upon him her beautiful young face, glowing in the evening light with an eager joy. "And--and?" she exclaimed, impetuously. "He is a good sort--Townsend," went on Ralph, reflectively. "I've an idea, Evie, that if you and he could have managed to hit it off, you would have suited each other capitally. He would be the kind likely to settle down into a country gentleman, too; and you would never be happy in town. He has brains and a heart, in addition to his good looks and manners, and a restrained force of character that would be an excellent balance for this little impulsive lady, whose only fault is that she jumps at conclusions instead of working to them." "You are perfectly right about that, Ralph," she said, laughing away a strong desire to cry. "I am learning wisdom, however, with rapidly advancing years. And you do only justice to my Cousin Vance, in your estimate of him. No doubt," here she swallowed a nervous catch in her voice, "if he told the truth in his letter, he congratulated you upon being allied to some one other than the young person who made his visit to Virginia last year a very hard test of patience, to say no more." She stopped, and tried to turn away her head. But Ralph, looking her gently in the face, read there what gave him courage to launch the last arrow in his quiver. "Whatever he said, I saw through it, Evie dear. And I--I could not wait to write an answer. I telegraphed my advice to come to Naples as fast as steam can carry him." * * * * * Shortly after her conversation upon the quay with Ralph (who, returning to Rome, had been duly translated into anticipated bliss), Eve and her father took advantage of a perfect Sunday for the excursion up Mount Vesuvius. In a landau with two horses,--a third to be annexed on the ascent,--they traversed the long street formed by the villages of San Giovanni, La Barra, Portici, and Resina, stretching from the parent city--a street suggesting in the matter of population a series of scattered ant-hills. Such a merry, dirty, shameless horde of all ages, who, abandoning the dens they called homes, had issued forth under the sun blazing even at that early hour of morning in his vault of blue, to bivouac in the open highway, was never seen! Marketing, chaffering, vending, gossiping, cooking, eating, drinking, performing the rites of religion and of the toilet, the hum of their voices was like the note of some giant insect. It was when a stranger's carriage came in sight that the air became suddenly vocal with shrill cries for alms; vehicles and horses were surrounded, escorted by noisy beggars, whose half-naked children offered flowers, or turned somersaults perilously near the wheels.