It certainly would be difficult to find a more charming residence than the Villa Tagni. Standing on the extreme verge of a low rocky promontory, which ran out some distance into the tideless waters of Lake Como, it appeared like some fairy palace as it nestled amid the cool green of its surrounding trees and reflected its delicately ornate façade in the still mirror of the water. Like most Italian houses it had a somewhat theatrical appearance, with its bright pink-coloured walls and vividly green shutters, set in broad frames of snow-white stone. Then again, these walls being decorated with arabesque designs in various brilliant tints, the general effect at a distance was that of cunningly wrought mosaic, while above this bizarre combination of colours sloped the roof of dull-hued red tiles; the picturesque whole standing out in glowing relief from the emerald background of heavily-foliaged trees of ilex, tamarisk, chestnut and cypress. High above towered a great mountain, with its grey scarred peak showing suddenly through its green forests against the clear blue of an Italian sky. More than half-way down, the highway ran along the slope like a sinuous white serpent, and below nestled the villa by the water's edge. Bright, fanciful, jewel-like, it was the very realization of a poet's dream, the magic outcome of some Oriental phantasy, such as we read of in those strange Arabian tales where the genii rear visionary palaces under the powerful spells of Solomon ben Daoud. A broad stone terrace ran along the front of the villa, on to which admission was given from the house by wide French windows, generally masked by their venetian shutters, which excluded the glare of the sun from the inner apartments. A double flight of steps descended from this terrace sheer into the cool water upon which floated the graceful pleasure boat belonging to the villa, and on either side grew dense masses of sycamore, fir, oak and laurel sloping down to the verge of the lake, their uniform tints broken at intervals by the pale grey foliage of olive trees. Radiant in the sunlight glowed the rosy blossoms of the oleander, sudden amid the shadow flashed the golden trails of drooping laburnams--here, like the fabled fruit of Hesperides, hung golden oranges, there the pallid yellow ovals of scented lemons, and deep in the faint twilight of glossy leaves glimmered the warm white blossoms of the magnolia tree, ivory censers from whence breathed those voluptuous perfumes which confuse the brain like the fumes of opium smoke. And then the flowers! Surely this was the paradise of flowers, which here grew in a prodigal profusion unknown in the carefully-cultured gardens of chill northern lands where the fruitful footsteps of Flora pause but a moment. In this favoured clime, however, the goddess ever remains, and adorns her resting place with lavish bounty of her fast-fading treasures.