A carriage passed before him through the Cascine gates, and drove down the road next the river. He followed, and when it had got a little way it stopped at the roadside, and a lady and little girl alighted, who looked about and caught sight of him, and then obviously waited for him to come up with them. It was Imogene and Effie Bowen, and the young girl called to him: "We _thought_ it was you. Aren't you astonished to find us here at this hour?" she demanded, as soon as he came up, and gave him her hand. "Mrs. Bowen sent us for our health--or Effie's health--and I was just making the man stop and let us out for a little walk." "My health is very much broken too, Miss Effie," said Colville. "Will you let me walk with you?" The child smiled, as she did at Colville's speeches, which she apparently considered all jokes, but diplomatically referred the decision to Imogene with an upward glance. "We shall be very glad indeed," said the girl. "That's very polite of you. But Miss Effie makes no effort to conceal her dismay," said Colville. The little girl smiled again, and her smile was so like the smile of Lina Ridgely, twenty years ago, that his next words were inevitably tinged with reminiscence. "Does one still come for one's health to the Cascine? When I was in Florence before, there was no other place if one went to look for it with young ladies--the Cascine or the Boboli Gardens. Do they keep the fountain of youth turned on here during the winter still?" "I've never seen it," said Imogene gaily. "Of course not. You never looked for it. Neither did I when I was here before. But it wouldn't escape me now." Since he had met them he had aged again, in spite of his resolutions to the contrary; somehow, beside their buoyancy and bloom, the youth in his heart faded. Imogene had started forward as soon as he joined them, and Colville, with Effie's gloved hand stolen shyly in his, was finding it quite enough to keep up with her in her elastic advance.