They stayed in an old sun-crumbled _albergo_ built on one of the promontories, the sheer cliff of which had been reinforced by immense brick arches raised one above another against its face, so that the soft tufaceous rock, which rather resembled rotten cheese, should not collapse and plunge _albergo_, tangled garden, and pine-dark promontory into the inky blue water two hundred feet below. Sorrento looks north, and the proprietor of the _albergo_, a toad-faced little man with sandy hair and a food-stained frock coat much too large for him, suggested that his new guests would be more comfortable at this season in rooms with an aspect away from the sea. The south aspect of the _albergo_ formed three sides of an oblong, and the doors of all the rooms opened on a balcony paved with blue and green porcelain tiles and covered with the naked grey stems of wistaria, the convolutions of which resembled the throes of huge pythons. The view looked away over orange groves to the Sorrentine hills, and particularly to one conical bosky peak on which the wooden cross of a Camaldolese congregation was silhouetted against the sky. In the garden below the balcony tazetta narcissus and China roses were in bloom. There were not many other guests in the _albergo_, and these were mostly elderly English and American women, all suffering from the delusion that Italy was the cheapest country on earth and from a delusion of the natives that all English and Americans were extremely wealthy. Kenrick apologised for bringing Nancy to the _Albergo del Sole_ rather than taking her to one of the two fashionable hotels. “But we can always go and feed at the Tramontano or the Victoria,” he pointed out. “And there’s a charm about this tumbledown old place. I was here once ten years ago and always promised myself a return visit. Of course, Winter is not the time to be in Sorrento. It’s not till the oranges come into their glory, about Easter, that one understands the raptures of the great men who have visited this place. The fascination of Sorrento is a stock subject with all the letter-writers of our century.” “Och, but I would much rather be staying here,” Nancy assured him. “I think this place is so attractive.” “It would be more attractive in Spring when the creamy Banksia roses are in blossom and hung with necklaces of wistaria. It is a little melancholy now. Yet the sun strikes warm at midday. I’ve told them to make up a roaring fire of chestnut logs in your room.” “They’ve certainly done so, and it’s as cosy as it can be.” “I only hope the weather stays fine for our holiday,” said Kenrick, putting up his monocle and staring an appeal to the tender azure of the December sky. And the weather did stay fine, so that they were able to drive or walk all day and escape from the narrow walled alleys of Sorrento, alleys designed for summer heats, when their ferns and mosses would refresh the sun-tired eye, but in Winter damp and depressing, soggy with dead leaves.