This Sicilian custom of living on the upper floors, to enjoy the fresher air and more perfect quiet, is found in several Italian cities. These private apartments, generally small and quiet, are sometimes called the _Casino_, and, with their private gardens, form, as it were, a distinct dwelling above the main palace. This of which we are speaking was set back from the front and side walls of the lower building by the width of a very broad terrace, so that it was concealed, and, as it were, isolated. At the back it formed a building of a single story, on the level of the flower-garden, since the lower edifice was built against the cliff. Viewing it from that side, one would have said that a stream of lava had flowed against the palace and hardened there, and had blotted out one whole side of it up to the level of the Casino. But the villa had been constructed in that way to avoid danger from fresh eruptions. Looking at it from the direction of Ætna, one would have taken it for a small summer-house perched on top of a rock. Not until you had made the circuit of that mass of volcanic débris did you discover a magnificent palace, consisting of three great structures, one upon another, and climbing the hill backward, so to speak. Under any other circumstances Michel would have been curious to know if this lady, who was said to be lovely and gracious, was, poetically speaking, worthy to inhabit so noble an abode; but his imagination, engrossed by the hurried work which had been entrusted to him, paid little heed to other things. He felt so fatigued when he laid aside his rough brush for an instant, that he was compelled to fight against drowsiness in order not to prolong his siesta beyond half an hour. Indeed, he was so afraid that the zeal of his companions might abate, that he took that brief interval of rest by stealth in the gallery of paintings, where his father would lock him in, and where it seemed that no one ever set foot. Two or three times he lacked courage to go and pass the night in the suburb of Catania, although his house was among the first on the road from the villa, and he consented to allow his father to procure a bed for him in the palace. When he did return to the wretched hovel where Mila bloomed like a rose under glass, he neither saw nor comprehended anything that took place about him. He confined himself to kissing his sister and telling her that he was glad to see her, but he had no time to scrutinize her or to talk with her.