Now, it may be here remarked, Lady Pell was first cousin to Sir Gilbert Clare. CHAPTER XXVI. GIOVANNA AT MAYLINGS While the events last recorded were working themselves out at St. Oswyth’s, affairs at Withington Chase had not been at a standstill. Luigi Rispani, now known to the world under his assumed name of Lewis Clare, had taken up his quarters at the Chase in his position as Sir Gilbert’s grandson, while Giovanna, otherwise Mrs. Care, his supposed mother, was duly installed at Maylings, the house which the Baronet had had specially fitted up for her occupancy. Plain to the verge of ugliness as far as its architectural pretensions were concerned, but roomy and homelike indoors, Maylings, which dated from the era of the Second George, was far too large a domicile for the limited requirements of Mrs. Clare; so much so, indeed, that Sir Gilbert contented himself with having about half its number of rooms furnished and made habitable. Its situation was somewhat lonely, there being no other house within a quarter of a mile of it. It stood back from the high road, fronting a huge clump of evergreens and a small carriage sweep, but from the drawing-room windows in the rear of the house one looked into a charming old-fashioned flower-garden. To Giovanna it all seemed very lonely and very dull. One other thing, however, Sir Gilbert did which filled her with unfeigned pleasure, and that was to make her a present of a horse and brougham. And within a few days there arrived a grand piano, of which Giovanna at once determined to avail herself to the utmost. She had been gifted by nature with a full rich contralto voice, together with a large measure of that musical talent which seems inherent in the children of the Sunny South; but her life hitherto had afforded her no opportunity of cultivating either one or the other. Now, however, her opportunity had come, and the very first time Captain Verinder came to see her, she requested him to find her a competent teacher, male or female, she did not care which. Thus it presently came to pass that Signor Sampi, a grey-haired but clever musician, journeyed twice a week to Maylings, and in the cultivation of her long-neglected gifts Giovanna found a new pleasure in life. Not for many a long year had such a sensation been known among the good folk of Mapleford and its neighbourhood as that with which Sir Gilbert Clare had provided them, and they did not fail to appreciate it to the full.