"I don't want to be better than my father!" Giulia cried eagerly. "If he is not a noble, he comes of a line of good and gifted men. My grandfather's name is revered in Rome, and his charitable works remain behind him, to show that if he was one of the cleverest Roman citizens, he had a heart as fine as his brain. _That_ is the noblest kind of nobility--_non è vero_, Grannie?" Grannie smiled assent, and entertained a poor opinion of Giulia's intellect. A shallow creature, spoilt by overmuch indulgence, and inclined to presume. The two girls were sitting in the sun by an open window, a long way off. They had their own table, and Miss Thompson waited upon them with assiduity. Grannie had been warned that there was to be no doleful talk, no thinly-disguised pity for the consumptive girl. All was to be as bright as the room full of flowers and the untempered sunshine. Provana told Lady Felicia that he had ordered a landau from Genoa, which had arrived that afternoon. "The horses are strong, and used to hill work, and there is an extra pair for difficult roads," he said. "Giulia and I mean to see everything interesting that can be seen between breakfast and sundown. Of course we must be indoors before sunset. Everybody must in this treacherous climate. I hope Miss Davis may be allowed to go with us sometimes, indeed often!" "Always, _Padre mio_, always!" cried Giulia from her distant sofa. She had begun to listen when her father talked of the carriage. "Vera is to come with us always. You will let her come, won't you, _cara_ Grannie?" "Please don't ask her," Vera said dutifully. "That would be deserting Grannie. She likes me to read to her in the afternoon." "She shall enjoy your hospitality now and then, Signorina, and I will do without my afternoon novel. But you would soon tire of her if she were with you often." "Tire of her! Impossible! Why, I don't even tire of Miss Thompson!" Giulia said naïvely. "Please let Miss Davis come with us whenever you can spare her," Provana said, when he took leave of Lady Felicia at the foot of the stairs leading to her upper floor. "You see how charmed my daughter is at having found an English friend; and I think you must understand how anxious I am to make her happy." Lady Felicia was all sympathy, and placed her granddaughter at the Signorina's disposal. If this man was of plebeian origin, he had a certain personal dignity that impressed her; nor was she unaffected by his importance in that mysterious world of which she knew so little, the world of boundless wealth. When she arrived, somewhat breathless, in the shabby second-floor _salon_, she sank into her chair with an impatient movement, and breathed a fretful sigh. "Think of this great coarse man, with his balcony of flowers, and four horses to his landau," she exclaimed disdainfully. "These Provanas absolutely exude gold!"