In that first drive through the narrow, steep, stone-paved streets of Fossato Irene was too excited to take in any details except a general impression of rich, foreign color and high, white walls. Afterwards, when she came to know the town better, she realized its subtler points. She felt as one in a dream when the carriage turned through a great gate, and passed along an avenue of orange trees to a large, square house, color-washed pink, and approached by a flight of marble steps. What happened next she could never clearly recall. She remembered the agony of a short wait in the drawing-room until Miss Rodgers arrived, how the whole party, including Vincent, were shown some of the principal rooms of the house, an agitated moment of good-by kisses, then the sound of departing wheels, and a sudden overwhelming sensation that, for the first time in her life, she was alone in a foreign land. Foreign and yet familiar, for the Villa Camellia was a skillful combination of the best out of several countries. Its setting was Italian, its decorations were French, and its fifty-six pupils were all unmistakably and undoubtedly Anglo-Saxon. Irene was assured on this point immediately, for Miss Rodgers, calling to a girl who was passing down the corridor, gave the newcomer into her charge with instructions to take her straight to the senior recreation room. "Our afternoon classes begin at 2.30," she remarked, "but you will have just ten minutes in which to be introduced to some of your schoolfellows. Elsie Craig will show you everything." Elsie made no remark to Irene--perhaps she was shy--but, starting off at a quick pace, led her down a long passage into a room on the ground floor. It was a pleasant room with a French window that opened out on to a veranda, where, over a marble balustrade, there was a view of an orange garden and the sea. Round a table were collected several older girls, watching with deep interest a kettle, which was beginning to sing, upon a spirit-lamp. They looked up with surprise as Elsie ushered in the new pupil. "Hello! You don't mean to tell us there's another of them!" exclaimed a dark girl with a long pigtail. "We've had two already! Why are they pouring on us to-day, I should like to know? It's a perfect deluge." "I hate folks butting in when the term has begun," said another grumpily. "We shall be swamped with 'freshies' soon," grunted the owner of the spirit-lamp. "If they expect coffee I tell them beforehand they just won't get it." "She says her name's Irene Beverley," volunteered Elsie Craig, in a perfunctory voice, as if she were performing an obvious duty and getting it over. "Oh, indeed!" "Well, now we know, so there's an end of it."