Grannie talked of the same things day after day; indeed, her conversation suggested a talking-machine, for one always knew what was coming. The talk was for the most part a long lament over all the things that had gone amiss in Grannie's life. The follies and mistakes of other people: father, uncles and aunts, husband, daughter; the wrong-headedness and self-will of others that had meant shipwreck for Grannie. Vera listened meekly, and could not say much in excuse for the sins of these dead people, of whose lives and characters she knew only what Grannie had told her. For her mother she did plead, at the risk of offending Grannie. She knew the history of the girl's love for her poet-lover; for she had it all in her father's exquisite verse; a story poem in which every phase of that romantic love lived in colour and light. Vera could feel the young hearts beating, as she hung over pages that were to her as sacred as Holy Writ. Grannie's bronchitis and Grannie's memories of past wrongs did not make for cheerfulness; and even the loveliness of that Italian shore in the celestial light of an Italian spring was not enough for the joy of life. There is a profound melancholy that comes down upon the soul in the monotony of a beautiful scene--where there is nothing besides that scenic beauty--a monotony that weighs heavier than ugliness. A dull street in Bloomsbury would have been hardly more oppressive than the afternoon stillness of San Marco, when Grannie had fallen asleep in her nest of silken cushions, and Vera had her one little walk alone--up and down, up and down the poor scrap of promenade with its scanty row of palms, tall and straggling, crowned with a spare tuft of leaves, and a bunch of dates that never came to maturity. Companionless and hopeless, Vera paced the promenade, and looked over the tideless sea. The only changes in the days were the alternations of Grannie's health, the days when she was better, and the days when she was worse, and when Dr. Wilmot came twice--dreary days, on which Vera had to go down to the table d'hôte alone, and to run the gauntlet of all the other visitors, who surrounded her in the hall, obtrusively sympathetic, and wanting to know the fullest particulars of Lady Felicia's bronchial trouble, and what Dr. Wilmot thought of it. They told her it must be very dull for her to be always with an invalid, and they tried to lure her into the public drawing-room, where she might join in a round game, or even make a fourth at bridge; or, if there were a conjuror that evening, the elderly widows and spinsters almost insisted upon her stopping to see the performance. "No, thank you, I mustn't stay. Grannie wants me," she would answer quietly; and after she had run upstairs, there would be a chorus of disapproval of Lady Felicia's want of consideration in depriving the sweet child of every little pleasure within her reach.