Rita met the strangers with less composure than she would have done but for that two minutes’ talk. Even when she threw herself into Lady Brotherton’s arms, in the fervour of feeling which her Italian blood made a little more apparent than it would have been had she been all English, she cast an eye upon Lady Brotherton’s companion. Lydia was not looking her best in the confused and painful fever of suspense and expectancy which was upon her; but she looked younger than her real age, and almost childlike in her slightness and slimness beside the matronly form of Lady Brotherton. Even Rita, though still light and small, was rounder and fuller than of old, but Liddy looked eighteen though she was twenty-two, and there could be no doubt that if Harry had seen her before it must have been as a child. This somewhat composed the fanciful bosom of Harry’s wife. Liddy when she had made her curtsey to Mrs. Oliver, sat down behind backs, with a timidity which had come suddenly back to her, isolating herself as far as might be, especially from Lionel, whom she had avoided ever since their recent conversation. Harry had not yet come into the room, and she felt herself altogether in a strange place. Perhaps it was this that brought Paolo to her side; the little Italian thought her probably, a neglected _demoiselle de compagnie_ whom nobody particularly cared to notice, and this was enough to bring him instantly to the rescue. “Miss Joscelyn is a stranger in Italy?” he said with an engaging and conciliatory smile. He spoke a great deal better English than when Harry had made acquaintance with him, and dressed with less _abandon_ and devotion to the beautiful; but he was still a “funny little man,” in the eyes of the English girl; his kindness however could not be mistaken. “Scarcely,” she said, “I have been in Italy all the winter; and now we are going home.” “Ah, you are going ’ome, that always pleases; but I hope Mees Jos--lyn will retain a little memory that is pleasant of Italy too.” “Oh, I have liked it so much,” said Liddy. She was disturbed at this moment by Harry’s entrance; and it occurred to her now for the first time as it had done to Lionel when he first saw him, that she had seen somebody very like him--who was it that was so like him? She paused in what she was saying to interpose this wondering question in her own mind. “That is Mr. Oliver,” said Paolo, “you have seen him before? He is what we call _beluomo_, fine man, very fine man; he is my great friend; I was the first to meet him when he stepped upon this shore; we have been friends of the heart always since that day.” Lydia cast an involuntary look from the little man in front of her, in his elaborate dress, to the big person of the Englishman. She could not help thinking they would make a strange pair. And Paolo, with the quickness of lightning, divined her meaning.