"Jar. Jarr, then, since you say I always cut my r's. _You_ ought to know Italian when you hear it. Jar is what they all say to me when they mean yes." "You ridiculous object, 'già' is the word." "That's exactly what I said: jar." It was three o'clock when they started, and a beautiful May afternoon. A pair of horses and the rattling phaeton had been sent to Casa Colombina from Tre Ponti. Modesta had already departed. "The celebration begins early," said Gray, as he saw her start. "She isn't going there now," answered Dennison. "She will go first to the house of Goro's mother, about half a mile from here; there she will sit braiding straw and gossiping with the old woman in a dark, cellar-like room, until the beloved object comes home and is ready to accompany her. I dare say she is taking him something with which to make himself smart for the occasion--a new necktie or a silk handkerchief." As they passed out on their way to the carriage they caught a glimpse of the distant white figure of the cook seated with his back towards them outside of his kitchen door in the shade, occupying his leisure in playing the flute; his notes, which just reached them, were soft and long-drawn as sighs. "What is it?" said Gray, listening. "I'm sure I know it." "'Com' è gentil'; that is, 'O summer night.' Peppino is very sentimental in his musical tastes." "He doesn't go to the party, then?" "He despises parties. _He_ goes in for bombs." It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when, on their return from the drive, Dennison checked his horses in a hedge-bordered lane, and stopped. (It may be mentioned that they did not reach the tower; no one--that is, no stranger--has ever reached it. Italians are indifferent to its mystery.) "This is the place," he said. "The house is a quarter of a mile from here, and I could have taken you nearer by keeping to the main road; but in that case they might have heard the sound of our wheels. I haven't let any one know we were coming, so that you can have a glimpse of the scene as it really is, and not tamed by the presence of strangers." He tied the horses to the hedge, and, climbing over a stone wall, led the way across a broad field, freshly ploughed. On the other side of this field the ground ascended, and the slope was covered by an olive-grove. The sparse gray foliage of the pruned trees cast hardly more than a lace-work of shade upon the moonlit ground, and the two men made their way upward easily; in ten minutes they had reached the top. Here, on a broad plateau, stood the farm-house with its out-buildings. Beyond the plateau the ground ascended again, decked by another grove. The door and windows of the house were open, and sounds of laughter came forth. The two Americans drew near cautiously, walking as quietly as they could in the shadow of the trees. But their care was unnecessary; all were assembled within, and no one was looking either from the door or the windows; the noise, too, was so