But as the spring came on, and the mild, enervating breezes ousted more and more their colder comrades, I began to long with all my soul and body for the country. The brown hills, so near and yet so far, inspired me with a fervour of longing. I had promised never to go beyond the city walls; even the great park, or Casine, where already the trees were burgeoning, was forbidden ground, though sometimes, indeed, I drove out there with the ladies. The cool and distant peaks of the Apennines drew my heart towards them with an ever-growing magnetism. The cypresses and ilexes springing up beyond the high white walls of a garden, the scent of spring flowers borne across to me in passing, filled me with a longing and a melancholy which were new to me. As a matter of fact, the enervating climate, the restricted life and the solitude--for solitude, when all were said, it was--were beginning to tell upon my health. I was not unhappy, but I grew thin and pale, and was developing a hitherto unknown mood of dreamy introspection. In June, I gathered, the whole Brogi household would adjourn to the family villa near the baths of Lucca. It was taken for granted that I was to accompany them, and, indeed, I had determined on making out my full year, should my services be required for so long. After that, no doubt, a husband would be found for Bianca, and I could return to England with a clear conscience and quite a nice little amount of savings. Mother should have a deep arm-chair, and Rosalind a really handsome wedding present; and with my new acquisition of Italian I hoped to be able to command a higher price in the educational market. The evenings were generally passed in chatter, in which I soon learnt to take my part; and I began to be included in the invitations to the houses of the various ladies who "received," like the Marchesa, on certain evenings of the week. No subject of gossip was too trivial for discussion; and I could not but admire the way in which the tiniest incident was taken up, turned inside out, battledored this way and that, and finally wore threadbare before it was allowed to drop, by these highly skilled talkers. Talk, indeed, was the business of their lives, the staple fare of existence. Every one treated me with perfect courtesy, but also, it must be owned, with perfect coldness. Bianca, as I said before, developed a sort of fondness for me; and Annunziata included me in her general benevolence--Annunziata, good soul, who was always laughing, when she was not deluged in tears. I fancy the charming Romeo had his drawbacks as a husband. The Marchesa, with her glib talk, her stately courtesy, was in truth the chilliest and the most reserved of mortals. Of Romeo I saw but little. With the old Marchese, alone, I was conscious of a silent sympathy. CHAPTER VI. COSTANZA MARCHETTI.