"The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business at all.

She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are

north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart.

Oh, Lucy!"

"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora's

unexpected accent. "It might be London."

She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at

the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the

English people; at the portraits of the

late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily

framed; at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that

was the only other decoration of the wall.

"Charlotte, don't you feel, too, that we might be in London?

I can hardly believe that all kinds of other things are just outside.

I suppose it is one's being so tired."

"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying down her fork.

"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her

letter would have looked over the Arno.

The Signora had no business to do it at all.

Oh, it is a shame!"

"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued; "but it does seem hard that you

shouldn't have a view." Lucy felt that she had been selfish.

"Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me: of course, you must look over the Arno, too.

I meant that.

The first vacant room in the front--" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part of

whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother--a piece of generosity to

which she made many a tactful allusion.

"No, no. You must have it." "I insist on it.

Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy." "She would never forgive me."

The ladies' voices grew animated, and--if the sad truth be owned--a little peevish.

They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness they wrangled.

Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one of them--one of the ill-

bred people whom one does meet abroad-- leant forward over the table and actually

intruded into their argument.

He said: "I have a view, I have a view."

Miss Bartlett was startled.

Generally at a pension people looked them over for a day or two before speaking, and

often did not find out that they would "do" till they had gone.

She knew that the intruder was ill-bred, even before she glanced at him.

He was an old man, of heavy build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes.

There was something childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of

senility.

What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her glance passed on

to his clothes. These did not attract her.

He was probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the swim.

So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then said: "A view?

Oh, a view!

How delightful a view is!" "This is my son," said the old man; "his

name's George. He has a view too."

"Ah," said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.

"What I mean," he continued, "is that you can have our rooms, and we'll have yours.

We'll change."

The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with the new-comers.

Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little as possible, and said "Thank you

very much indeed; that is out of the question."

"Why?" said the old man, with both fists on the table.

"Because it is quite out of the question, thank you."

"You see, we don't like to take--" began Lucy.

Her cousin again repressed her. "But why?" he persisted.

"Women like looking at a view; men don't."

And he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,

saying, "George, persuade them!" "It's so obvious they should have the

rooms," said the son.

"There's nothing else to say." He did not look at the ladies as he spoke,

but his voice was perplexed and sorrowful.

Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in for what is known as "quite a

scene," and she had an odd feeling that whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the

contest widened and deepened till it dealt,

not with rooms and views, but with--well, with something quite different, whose

existence she had not realized before.

Now the old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not

change? What possible objection had she?

They would clear out in half an hour.

Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was powerless

in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any one so gross.

Her face reddened with displeasure.

She looked around as much as to say, "Are you all like this?"

And two little old ladies, who were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging

over the backs of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating "We are not; we are

genteel."

"Eat your dinner, dear," she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with the meat that

she had once censured. Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd

people opposite.

"Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure.

To-morrow we will make a change." Hardly had she announced this fell decision

when she reversed it.

The curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout but

attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table, cheerfully apologizing

for his lateness.

Lucy, who had not yet acquired decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, oh!

Why, it's Mr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely!

Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now, however bad the rooms are.

Oh!" Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:

"How do you do, Mr. Beebe?

I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at

Tunbridge Wells when you helped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter."

The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember the ladies quite

as clearly as they remembered him.

But he came forward pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was

beckoned by Lucy.

"I AM so glad to see you," said the girl, who was in a state of spiritual starvation,

and would have been glad to see the waiter if her cousin had permitted it.

"Just fancy how small the world is.

Summer Street, too, makes it so specially funny."

"Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street," said Miss Bartlett, filling

up the gap, "and she happened to tell me in the course of conversation that you have

just accepted the living--"

"Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you at

Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: 'Mr. Beebe is--'"

"Quite right," said the clergyman.

"I move into the Rectory at Summer Street next June.

I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming neighbourhood."

"Oh, how glad I am!

The name of our house is Windy Corner." Mr. Beebe bowed.

"There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often we get him

to ch---- The church is rather far off, I mean."

"Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner."

"I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it."

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than to Miss

Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons.

He asked the girl whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that

she had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and

he was first in the field.

"Don't neglect the country round," his advice concluded.

"The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by Settignano, or

something of that sort."

"No!" cried a voice from the top of the table.

"Mr. Beebe, you are wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must

go to Prato."

"That lady looks so clever," whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin.

"We are in luck." And, indeed, a perfect torrent of

information burst on them.

People told them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to

get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how much the place

would grow upon them.

The Pension Bertolini had decided, almost enthusiastically, that they would do.

Whichever way they looked, kind ladies smiled and shouted at them.

And above all rose the voice of the clever lady, crying: "Prato!

They must go to Prato. That place is too sweetly squalid for

words.

I love it; I revel in shaking off the trammels of respectability, as you know."

The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned moodily to

his plate.

Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in the midst of her success, found

time to wish they did.

It gave her no extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when she

rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little bow.

The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow, but by

raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across something.

She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the curtains--

curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with more than cloth.

Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing good-evening to her guests, and

supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and Victorier, her daughter.

It made a curious little scene, this attempt of the Cockney to convey the grace

and geniality of the South.

And even more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid comfort

of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really Italy?

Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which had the

colour and the contours of a tomato.

She was talking to Mr. Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards

and forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some invisible

obstacle.

"We are most grateful to you," she was saying.

"The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a

peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure."

He expressed his regret. "Do you, by any chance, know the name of an

old man who sat opposite us at dinner?" "Emerson."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"We are friendly--as one is in pensions." "Then I will say no more."

He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

"I am, as it were," she concluded, "the chaperon of my young cousin, Lucy, and it

would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation to people of whom we know

nothing.

His manner was somewhat unfortunate. I hope I acted for the best."

"You acted very naturally," said he.

He seemed thoughtful, and after a few moments added: "All the same, I don't think

much harm would have come of accepting." "No harm, of course.

But we could not be under an obligation."

"He is rather a peculiar man." Again he hesitated, and then said gently:

"I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you to show

gratitude.

He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly what he means.

He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would value them.

He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite.

It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak

the truth."

Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so always hope that

people will be nice." "I think he is; nice and tiresome.

I differ from him on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say

I hope--you will differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather

than deplores.

When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up.

He has no tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and he

will not keep his opinions to himself.

We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we

thought better of it." "Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett,

"that he is a Socialist?"

Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips.

"And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?"

"I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet.

He seems a nice creature, and I think he has brains.

Of course, he has all his father's mannerisms, and it is quite possible that

he, too, may be a Socialist." "Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett.

"So you think I ought to have accepted their offer?