It was a morning to give courage to any one; the air was fresh and sweet; she drank deep of the abundant gladness and brightness of the world.  The great plain of waters before her shimmered and sparkled in millions of diamonds; with here and there long splashes of sunny green, and here and there long splashes of purple where the sea-weed showed through.  The waves sprung white on the projecting walls of the Castello dell’ Ovo, and washed in on the shore with a soft continuous murmur; the brown-sailed fishing-boats went by, showing black or red as they happened to be in sunshine or shadow.  Then far away beyond the shining sea the island of Capri lay like a blue cloud on the horizon; and far away beyond the now awakening city near her rose Vesuvius, the twin peaks dark under some swathes of cloud, the sunlight touching the lower slopes into a yellowish green, and shining on the pink fringe of villas along the shore.  On so fair and bright a morning hope came as natural to her as singing to a bird.  The fears of the night were over; she could not be afraid of what such a day should bring forth.

And yet—­and yet—­from time to time—­and just for a second or so—­her heart seemed to stand still.  And she was so silent and preoccupied at breakfast, that her mother remarked it; and Natalie had to excuse herself by saying that she was a little tired with the travelling.  After breakfast she led her mother into the reading-room, and said, in rather an excited way,

“Now, mother, here is a treat for you; you will get all the English papers here, and all the news.”

“You forget, Natalie,” said her mother, smiling, “that English papers are not of much use to me.”

“Ah, well, the foreign papers,” she said, quickly.  “You see, mother, I want to go along to a chemist’s to get some white rose.”

“You should not throw it about the railway carriages so much, Natalushka,” the unsuspecting mother said, reprovingly.  “You are extravagant.”

She did not heed.

“Perhaps they will have it in Naples.  Wait until I come back, mother; I shall not be long.”

But it was not white-rose scent that was in her mind as she went rapidly away and got ready to go out; and it was not in search of any chemist’s shop that she made her way to the Via Roma.  Why, she had asked herself that morning, as she stood on the balcony, and drank in the sunlight and the sweet air, should she take the poor tired mother with her on this adventure?  If there was danger, she would brave it by herself.  She walked quickly—­perhaps anxious to make the first plunge.

She had no difficulty in finding the Vico Carlo, though it was one of the narrowest and steepest of the small, narrow, and steep lanes leading off the main thoroughfare into the masses of tall and closely-built houses on the side of the hill.  But when she looked up and recognized the little plate bearing the name at the corner, she turned a little pale; something, she knew not what, was now so near.