They did their best; but it was soon evident to Lavinia that in some unguarded moment the impetuous Mat would yield to the spell and go gambading away for a ride _sans_ duenna, _sans_ habit, _sans_ propriety, _sans_ everything. Amanda likewise seemed losing her head, and permitted the dark-eyed Colonel to talk to her when they met; only a moment--but what a perilous moment it was!--when this six-foot Mars leaned over a green hedge and talked about the weather in the softest Italian that ever melted a woman's heart. 'I'm going to Venice next week; so you may as well make up your minds to it, girls. I _cannot_ bear this awful responsibility any longer; for I am very sure you will both be off to Turin with those handsome rascals if we stay much longer. My mind is made up, and I won't hear a word.' Thus Lavinia, with a stern countenance; for the romantic old lady felt the charm as much as the girls did, and decided that discretion was the better part of valour for the whole party. 'I should never dare to go home and tell my honoured parents that Mat had run away with a man as handsome as Jove, and as poor as Job. Amanda's indignant relatives would rise up and stone me if I let her canter into matrimony with the fascinating Colonel, who may have a wife and ten children in Turin, for all we know. They _must_ be torn away at once, or my character as duenna is lost for ever.' Having made up her mind, Livy steeled her heart to all appeals, and wrote letters, packed trunks, and watched her little flock like a vigilant sheep-dog. How she would ever have got them through that last week is very uncertain, if a providential picnic had not helped her. A fair was held in the town, and a delightful surprise-party was got up among the artists of Rome. Twenty-five came driving over in a big carriage, with four gaily decorated horses, postilions, hampers of lunch, flutes and horns, and much jollity bottled up for the occasion. A very festive spectacle they made as they drove through the narrow streets with flowers and streamers in their hats, singing and joking in true artistic style. They meant to have lunched in the open air; but, as it was cloudy, decided to spread the feast at the hotel. Such a delightful revel as followed! A scene from the 'Decameron,' modernised, would give some idea of it; for after the banquet all adjourned to the gardens of the Doria Villa, and there disported themselves as merrily as if all the plagues of life were quite forgotten, and death itself among the lost arts. Flirting and dancing, charades and singing, stories and statues, poems and pictures, gossip and gambols, absorbed the hours as pleasantly as in the olden time. And if the costumes were not as picturesque as those in Vedder's fine picture, the ladies were as lovely, the gentlemen as gallant, and all much better behaved than those of Boccaccio's party.