The world is full of its strange vicissitudes, and in nothing more remarkably than the way people are reconciled, ignore the past, and start afresh in life to incur more disagreements, and set to bickering again. Great kings and kaisers indulge in this pastime; profound statesmen and politicians do very little else. What wonder, then, if the declining sun saw the smart tandem slipping along towards the Bagni, with the O'Shea and his man sitting side by side in pleasant converse! They were both smoking, and seemed like men who enjoyed their picturesque drive, and the inspiriting pace they travelled at. “When I 'll singe these 'cat hairs' off, and trim him a little about the head, he 'll look twice as well,” said Joe, with his eye on the leader. “It's a pity to see a collar on him.” “We 'll take him down to Rome, and show him off over the hurdles,” said his master, joyfully. “I was just thinkin' of that this minute; wasn't that strange now?” “We 'll have to go, for they 're going to break up house here, and go off to Rome for the winter.” “How will we settle with Pan?” said Joe, thoughtfully. “A bill, I suppose.” Joe shook his head doubtingly. “I 'm afraid not.” “Go I will, and go I must,” said O'Shea, resolutely. “I 'm not going to lose the best chance I ever had in life for the sake of a beggarly innkeeper.” “Why would you? Sure, no one would ask you! For, after all, 't is only drivin' away, if we 're put to it I don't think he 'd overtake us.” “Not if we went the same pace you did this morning, Joe,” said O'Shea, laughing; and Joe joined pleasantly in the laugh, and the event ceased to be a grievance from that instant. CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. MORRIS AS COUNSELLOR The breakfast at the Villa Caprini always seemed to recall more of English daily life and habit than any other event of the day. It was not only in the luxuriously spread table, and the sideboard arrayed with that picturesque profusion so redolent of home, but there was that gay and hearty familiarity so eminently the temper of the hour, and that pleasant interchange of news and gossip, as each tore the envelope of his letter, or caught some amusing paragraph in his paper.