"'Oh, suck an orange!' I said, 'Chew gum! It's anything you choose to call it. But when a thing takes my fancy, I'm going right on to buy it. And if it enables a greasy little Italian to buy himself and his children more garlic,' I said, 'that's not going to stop me,' I said. I don't mind showing you"--she dropped her selections from the morning's dialogue--"the thing I bought which started our little discussion. The artist who made it brought it himself to show me." She went to take the object referred to from her desk, and held it before him, examining it at the same time as he did. "Do you see what it is? Can you tell at once?" "H-m, I'm not sure. Is it intended for a portrait of Queen Margherita?" "Right you are! Of course that's what it is. It's a picture of the queen, done by hand with pen and ink; but that's not all. If you should take a magnifying glass, you would see that every line is a line of writing--fine, fine pen-writing, the very finest possible, and if you begin reading at this pearl of her crown, and just follow through all the quirligiggles and everything to the end, you will have read the whole history of Italy in a condensed form! Isn't it wonderful? Don't you think it extraordinary, a real curiosity? Don't you think I was right to buy it?" "My opinion on that point, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, would rather depend on what you paid for it." "Oh, would it?" She lost impetus, and gave a moment to reflection. "Well, I shall never know, then, for I'm not going to tell you. One's enough blaming me for extravagance." "My dear Mrs. Hawthorne, pray don't suppose me bold enough to--" "Oh, you're bold enough, my friend. But while I like my friends to speak their minds, I've had just enough of it for one day, d' you see? I've had enough, in fact, to make me sort of homesick." She looked it, and not as far as could be from tears. The small vexation of his failure to think her treasure worth anything she might have paid for it, the intimation that he might join the camp of the enemy in finding her extravagant, had acted apparently as a last straw. "Oh, Mrs. Hawthorne, I beg of you not to feel homesick!" he cried, compunctious and really eager. "It's such a poor compliment to Florence and to us, you know, us Florentines, who owe you so much for bringing among us this winter your splendid laughter and good spirits and the dimples which it does us so much good to see."