I don’t know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate for her, but it was the fact that her first rapid glance round all her horizon to try to remember if she knew any one who would like to be taken there with her--came to nothing. If she chose to go she must make up her mind to go for herself. Well, she said after an interval, why not go for myself? There was nothing unlawful in it, no more than in getting dresses from Paris, which she did without hesitation. Therefore, accordingly, with her usual rapidity, having placed everything on a safe footing that none of her enterprises might be arrested, Diana set off. She sent no warning letters before her. Perhaps this was rash: but it was not as if she expected any special warmth of welcome. She knew exactly how she would be received by all her friends,--how Sophy and her aunt would flutter about her; how Mrs. Hunstanton would raise her eyebrows, and proceed to immediate but probably silent speculations as to what had brought her; how Mr. Hunstanton would claim her interest in the histories of all his friends; even how sickly Reginald would inspect her to see what she had brought him. All this Diana knew beforehand. She went rapidly across the sea and land on the last wild days of March, and found herself whirled through the Tuscan plain among the almond-trees in the beginning of April. What a flush there was everywhere about of those almond-trees, useful and meant for fruiting, not kept merely to be the earliest ornaments of the garden, like ours! She seemed to be wandering through the backgrounds of all the Italian pictures she knew, seeing the soft evening light strike upon the little cones of hills, the old castles and convents. Was this the Val d’Arno, the country of dreams, and were these the Apennines? There was a vague elation, a sense of wondering joyous unreality, in the very names.