Louise smiled approval of this reply; she had studied life in many aspects. She liked Mrs. Allonby, whom she had made acquainted with the whole of her family history, and of whom she had asked and received counsel and munificent tips--but the latter unasked. "Stupid boy!" Ermengarde said to herself, with vexation. She had dined publicly in his flowers night after night, beginning with the tea-roses he gave her in the garden on her arrival. And the crocodile at the Carnival had thrown her Parma violets. Yes, and she had worn them--idiot!--without thinking. Luckily, nobody would know--except Miss Boundrish and her mother, and---- But, after all, what are flowers? and what did this French boy's impertinence or ignorance matter? A wet day, accompanied by a furious headache and the state of mind Germans call _Katzenjammer_, followed the thrilling afternoon of real life at Monte Carlo. Odd to think that it was actually raining at Les Oliviers. But not common, dreary rain, such as makes London streets a foretaste of the future habitation of sinners. No, fairy rain, clean, bright, transparent, a sort of crystalline veil through which that beautiful Southern shore could be seen with undazzled eyes, and yet more distinctly than in the clear sunlight, like a lovely human form, lovelier through transparent drapery. The clouds were not leaden, but of pearly lustre; the feathery, misty grace of olive-woods was no longer confused with the heavier mass and colour of pines; the delicate symmetry of those flights of steps that were vine-terraces, connected by miniature flights that were real stairs, came into view; every solitary cottage and every towered hamlet stood out clear on its crest beneath the solemn mountain peaks. The sea behind those shining curtains of moving rain was still blue, and there was leisure now to be glad of a four-square house on a mountain ridge, with a wide and glorious prospect from every window, and a different view on every side of the house. Mr. Welbourne was trying to catch an impression from five sides at once, and in despair wandered up and down the corridors looking at each in turn. An amateur was thumping music-hall melodies on the ground-floor piano, which was out of tune, while another played fragments of Wagner in the drawing-room immediately above it, and Miss Boundrish practised _solfeggi_ in the room over that.