Lady Felicia decided on San Marco, a picturesque little spot on the Italian Riviera, which had been only a fishing village till within the last ten years, when an English doctor had "discovered" it, and two or three hotels had been built to accommodate the patients he sent there. The sea-front was sheltered from every pernicious wind, and the sea was unpolluted by the drainage of a town. Peasant proprietors grew their carnations all along the shore, close to the sandy beach, and the olive woods that clothed the sheltering hill were carpeted with violets and narcissus. Lady Felicia described San Marco as a paradise; but her friends told her that there was absolutely no society, and that she would be bored to death. "You will meet nobody but invalids, dreadful people in Bath chairs!" one of her rich friends told her, a purse-proud matron who owned a villa at Cannes, and considered no other place "possible" from Spezzia to Marseilles. "I shall be in a Bath chair myself," replied Lady Felicia. "I want quiet and economy, and not society. At Vera's age it is best that there should be no talk of dances and high jinks." Mrs. Montagu Watson smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. "Girls have their own opinions about life nowadays," she said. "I don't think Theodora or Margaret would put up with San Marco, although they are still in the school-room. They want fine clothes and smart carriages to look at, when they trudge with their governess." "Vera is more unsophisticated than your girls. She will be quite happy reading Scott or Dickens in a garden by the sea. I mean to keep her as fresh as I can till I hand her over to one of her aunts to be brought out." "She is a sweet, dreamy child," said Mrs. Watson, who became deferential at the mere mention of countesses, "and I dare say she is going to be pretty." "I have no doubt about that," said Lady Felicia. * * * * * They went to San Marco early in November, and found the hotel and the sea-front the abode of desolation, so far as people went. The habitual invalids had not yet arrived, and the weather was at its worst. The four cosmopolitan shops that spread their trivial wares to tempt the English visitor, and which gave a touch of colour and gaiety to the poor little street, were not to open till December. There were only the shabby little butcher, baker, and grocer, who supplied the wants of the natives. Vera delighted in the scenery, but she found a sense of dulness creeping over her, in the midst of all that loveliness of mountain and shore. Everything seemed deadly still, a calm that weighed upon the spirits. Her grandmother had caught cold on the journey, and the English doctor had to be summoned in the morning after their arrival.