So Bianca and I went up the steep path to Mrs. Mackellar’s shortly after four yesterday afternoon. She lives in a stucco castle with battlements. There was already a tarantella going on in the kitchen--Seraphina is a notable dancer--and Bianca brightened up. She said, “This is the place for me,” and brushing rudely by me trotted down the back-stairs and I saw her no more. So I went alone to the house-roof. “All Alatri” was there, perspiring under an Oriental awning, which Mrs. Mackellar had put up for the shelter of her guests. It seemed calculated to concentrate the heat of the sun, and to exclude all air. The German doctor, who has not left the island, even to go to Naples, for nine years, was talking the native dialect to a Swedish painter; the mysterious Russian widow who plays picquet every evening with her man cook was chattering voluble French to a circle of mixed nationality; and Mrs. Mackellar, resplendent in tartan, was treating bewildered listeners to the Peebles speech. The ices had transformed themselves into a delicious fruit-cream, and the sugar was melting like tallow off the cakes. We indulged in the usual topics, the impossibility of leaving Alatri that summer, the promise of a fine vintage, the apocryphal shark three metres long, whose dorsal fin had appeared only a few yards from the shore of the Bagno, the iniquity of servants in general, and the conspicuous virtue of Seraphina. Mrs. Mackellar, in the democratic spirit that helps to make Alatri so wildly interesting, had added that when the feasting in the kitchen was over, and when no one wanted to eat more ice-cream on the house-top, the party from below should join the party up above, so that we all should be one on this happy occasion. Accordingly, after a while she leaned over the battlements of her castle, gave a loud war-cry, and up came Seraphina’s party. She led the way with her _promesso_, in a state of high hilarity, and all the servants of all Mrs. Mackellar’s guests brought up the rear. There was no blushing possible, for everybody was scarlet with heat already, and we split off into domestic groups. Francesco sat by me, and began to tell me why nobody went to mass on this name day of St. John the Baptist. This was interesting, but on the other side of me was Seraphina discussing _trousseau_ with her mistress, and the loud arresting Italian of Mrs. Mackellar only permitted me to give half an ear to the story of San Giovanni. However, Francesco could tell me about it again to-morrow, in less distracted conditions, and when the discussion about the _trousseau_ was over (I had gathered several plums, _un tartano di Edinborgo_ being a fine one) I left.