"It is not much trouble to wade for a minute or two in this deliciously cool water," said the stranger, with a smile, as he returned from his expedition, umbrella in hand. "There, I think you will find it uninjured. It's a wonder that it was not broken. You would have been inconvenienced without it on this hot day." He raised his hat slightly as he spoke and moved away. The artist received another shock. This young man--for he moved with the strength and lightness of one still young, and his face was a young face, too--this young man had grey hair--perfectly grey. There was not a black thread amongst it. For one moment the artist was so much astonished that he nearly forgot to thank the stranger for the service that he had rendered him. "One moment," he said, hurriedly. "Pray allow me to thank you. I am very much obliged to you. You don't know how great a service you have done me. If I can be of any use to you in any way----" "It was a very trifling service," said the young man, courteously. "I wish it had been my good fortune to do you a greater one. This was nothing." "Foreign!" murmured the artist to himself, as the stranger returned to his lair behind the thicket, where he seemed to be occupying himself in putting on his socks and boots once more. "No Englishman would have answered in that way. I wish he had not disappeared so quickly. I should like to have made a sketch of his head. Hum! I shall not sketch much to-day, I fancy." He shut up his paint-box with an air of resolution, and walked leisurely to the spot where the young man was completing his toilet. "I ought perhaps to explain," he began, with an air which he fancied was Machiavellian in its simplicity, "that the loss of that umbrella would have been a serious matter to me. It might have entailed another and more serious loss--the loss of my liberty." The young man looked up with a puzzled and slightly doubtful expression. "I beg your pardon," he said. "The loss of----" "The loss of my liberty," said the Englishman, in a louder and rather triumphant tone of voice. "The fact is, my dear sir, that I have a very tender and careful wife, and an equally tender and careful daughter and niece, who have so little confidence in my power of caring for my own safety that they have at various times threatened to accompany me in all my sketching expeditions. Now, if I came home to them and confessed that I had been attacked by a troop of savage Italian children, who tossed my umbrella into the river, do you think I should ever be allowed to venture out alone again?" The young man smiled, with a look of comprehension. "Can I be of any further use to you?" he said. "Can I walk back to the town with you, or carry any of your things?"