‘Well, he sees the evil. He’s been looking at it pretty closely, and he knows it’s there; and when Sybert feels a thing he feels it strongly. But,’ Copley smiled, ‘while he says things himself against the country, you’ll find he’ll not let any one else say them.’ ‘What do people think about him now—being mixed up in all these riots?’ ‘Oh, just now he’s mixed up in the right side, and the officials are very willing to pat him on the back. But as for the populace, I’m afraid he’s not making himself over-liked. They have a most immoral tendency to sympathize with the side that’s against the law, and they can’t understand their friends not sympathizing with the same side. It’s a pretty hard thing for him to have to tell these poor fellows to be quiet and go back to their work and starve in silence.’ Copley sighed and folded his arms. ‘I am sorry, Marcia, you don’t like Sybert better. There are not many like him.’ Marcia let the observation pass without comment. * * * * * The next morning, as Mrs. Copley and Marcia were sitting on the loggia listlessly engaged with books and embroidery, there came whirring down the avenue the contessa’s immaculate little victoria, with the yellow coronet emblazoned on the sides, with the coachman and footman in the Torrenieri livery, green with yellow pipings. It was a gay little affair; it matched the contessa. She stepped out, pretty and debonair, in a fluttering pale-green summer gown, and ran forward to the loggia with a little exclamation of distress. ‘_Cara signora, signorina_, I am desolated! We must part! Is it not sad? I go with Bartolomeo’ (Bartolomeo was the count) ‘to plant olive orchards on his estate in the Abruzzi. Is it not lonely, that—to spend the summer in an empty castle on the top of a mountain, with only a view for company? And my friends at the baths or the lakes or in Switzerland, or—oh, everywhere except on my mountain-top!’ Marcia laughed at the contessa’s despair. ‘But why do you go, contessa, if you do not like it?’ she inquired. ‘But my husband likes it. He has a passion for farming; after roulette, it it his chief amusement. He is very pastoral—Bartolomeo. He adores the mountain and the view and the olive orchards. And in Italy, signorina, the wife has to do as the husband wishes.’ ‘I’m afraid the wives have to do that the world over, contessa.’ ‘Ah, no, signorina, you cannot tell me that; I have seen. In America the husband does as the wife wishes. It is a beautiful country, truly. You have many charming customs. Yes, I will give you good advice: you will be wise to marry an American. They do not like mountain-tops. But perhaps you will visit me on my mountain-top?’ she asked. ‘The view—ah, the beautiful view! It is not so bad.’ ‘I’m afraid not, contessa. We are leaving for the Tyrol ourselves a week from to-morrow.’ ‘So soon! Every one is going. Truly, the world comes to an end next week in Rome.’