And now that he was here, where was his luggage? Did he come without it? There was certainly only one place in the city where he could stop. He must remain nowhere else but here. Dick modestly excused himself. He was scarcely prepared. He was travelling in company with friends, and would hardly like to leave them. The Count looked reproachfully at him. Did he hesitate about that? Why, his friends also must come. He would have no refusal. They all must come. They would be as welcome as himself. He would go with Dick to his hotel in person and bring his friends there. In a short time the Count and Dick had driven to the hotel, where the former pressed upon the Senator and Buttons an invitation to his house. They were not allowed to refuse, but were taken away, and before they fairly understood the unexpected occurrence they were all installed in magnificent apartments in the Palazzo Gonfaloniere. Buttons's acquaintance with the language, literature, manners, and customs of Italy made him appreciate his advantages; the friendship of the Count prevented Dick from feeling otherwise than perfectly at home; and as for the Senator, if it had been possible for him to feel otherwise, his experience of high life at Florence would have enabled him to bear himself serenely here. His complete self-possession, his unfaltering gaze, his calm countenance, were never for a moment disturbed. The Count had been long enough in America to appreciate a man of the stamp of the Senator; he therefore from the very first treated him with marked respect, which was heightened when Dick told him of the Senator's achievements during the past few weeks. The brilliant society which surrounded the Count was quite different from that which the Senator had found in Florence. The people were equally cultivated, but more serious. They had less excitability, but more deep feeling. Milan, indeed, had borne her burden far differently from Florence. Both hated the foreigner; but the latter could be gay, and smiling, and trifling even under her chains; this the former could never be. The thoughtful, earnest, and somewhat pensive Milanese was more to the Senator's taste than the brilliant and giddy Florentine. These, thought he, may well be a free people. Moreover, the Senator visited the Grand Cathedral, and ascended to the summit. Arriving there his thoughts were not taken up by the innumerable statues of snow-white marble, or the countless pinnacles of exquisite sculpture that extended all around like a sacred forest filled with saints and angels, but rather to the scene that lay beyond.