“Oh?” wondered the lady.  “Are you a clairvoyante?  How do you know that I speak English?”

“My friend Prospero told me so,” said Annunziata.

“Your friend Prospero?” the lady repeated.  “You quote your friend Prospero very often.  Who is your friend Prospero?”

“He is a signore,” said Annunziata.  “He has seen you, he has seen your form, in the garden and in the olive wood.”

“Oh,” said the lady.

“And I suppose he must have heard you speak English,” Annunziata added.  “He lives at the presbytery.”

“And where, by-the-by, do you live?” asked the lady.

“I live at the presbytery too,” said Annunziata.  “I am the niece of the parroco.  I am the orphan of his only brother.  My friend Prospero lives with us as a boarder.  He is English.”

“Indeed?” said the lady.  “Prospero is a very odd name for an Englishman.”

“Prospero is not his name,” said Annunziata.  “His name is Gian.  That is English for Giovanni.”

“But why, then,” the lady puzzled, “do you call him Prospero?”

“Prospero is a name I have given him,” explained Annunziata.  “One day I told his fortune.  I can tell fortunes—­with olive-stones, with playing-cards, or from the lines of the hand.  I will tell you yours, if you wish.  Well, one day, I told Prospero’s, and everything came out so prosperously for him, I have called him Prospero ever since.  He will be rich, though he is poor; and he will marry a dark woman, who will also be rich; and they will have many, many children, and live in peace to the end of their lives.  But there!” Annunziata cried out suddenly, with excitement, waving the hand that held her narcissus.  “There is my friend Prospero now, coming in the gig.”

Down the avenue, sure enough, a gig was coming, a sufficiently shabby, ancient gig, drawn, however, at a very decent pace by a very decent-looking horse, and driven by John Blanchemain.

“Ciao, Prospero!” called Annunziata, as he passed.

And John took off his hat, a modish Panama, and bowed and smiled to her and to the lady.  And one adept in reading the meaning of smiles might have read three or four separate meanings in that smile of his.  It seemed to say to Annunziata, “Ah, you rogue!  So already you have waylaid her, and made her acquaintance.”  To the lady:  “I congratulate you upon your companion.  Isn’t she a diverting little monkey?” To himself:  “And I congratulate you, my dear, upon being clothed and in your right mind, and upon having a proper hat to make your bow with.”  And to the universe at large “By Jove, she is good-looking.  Standing there before that marble bench, in the cool green light, under the great ilexes, with her lilac frock and her white sunshade, and Annunziata all in grey beside her,—­what a subject for a painting, if only there were any painters who knew how to paint!”