Accordingly, I was not surprised to see him appear at our hotel first thing next morning. Shortly afterwards they all three sallied forth to see the pictures at the _Collège_ Fesch; then they ordered a basket to be packed with provisions, and, the weather being splendid, hired a carriage and drove off for a day's outing beyond Pisciatella. The special object of the two younger people was sketching, to which Kitty was greatly addicted, and for which she had a decided talent. Lord Clement, on the contrary, had no natural gift in that line; but, none the less, he strove laboriously to acquire the art, because he regarded drawing as a highly moral, elevating, correct, and unexceptionable amusement, and therefore one to be cultivated and encouraged as much as possible. As for Mrs. Rollin, she had a French novel in her pocket, and would be perfectly happy to bask in the sun and read whilst her companions sketched or flirted, as might seem good in their own eyes. My employers being thus disposed of for the day, I was left alone with nothing particular to do. The streets were too filthy to be very inviting, so, being a good walker, I went for a stretch along the road towards the Isles Sanguinaires. It was a lovely day, and I thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the walk, and the contrast between winter, represented by snow-covered Monte Oro in the distance, and summer, felt in the hot sunshine that warmed me through and through, and sparkled on the brilliant blue sea beside the road. And when I got beyond the limits of the town there were wild hillsides rising on my right, all covered with low bushes of some kind of cistus, which, though now brown and scrubby-looking, would be beautiful, I thought, when in full bloom. But I must not expatiate on the scenery, as that has nothing to do with my story. What I saw in the course of that walk, to which I now wish particularly to call attention, is this: Near the outskirts of the town I came to a number of small houses standing pretty close together on one side of the road. Each was in the middle of a little plot of ground, which was surrounded either by a wall, or else by strong iron railings; and this enclosure was only to be entered by a gate, whence a short drive led to the door of the house within. Some, but not all, had a family name stuck up at the entrance; and some of the plots of ground were merely turfed over, whilst others were nicely laid out in flower-beds and borders. One would naturally have concluded these buildings to be villas, if it had not been for the curious fact of their being destitute of windows. This puzzled me; for I did not suppose that Corsicans could be different from the rest of the world in disliking to live in windowless habitations.