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344 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

11 Indeed most truly/' he said. " I once knew an odd, simple kind of rich man who owned a palace in Worcester- shire, but lived in the lodge which stood by the road at his gates. Of course, Dolly, I could live with you, my dear, anywhere, palace or cottage, a garret in Bloomsbury or a bijou villa standing in its own grounds at Kensing- ton."

" Sam, you're so odd ! "

" When I said garret/' said Sam, " of course I only meant it as a figure of speech a fa$on de parler, as Wal- ter would say ; but without you I can imagine myself in this Bellaggio palace longing for a cottage on the hills opposite, or trying to negotiate an exchange of rooms with one of those loafing peasants who live at the top of the narrow avenues that give upon the Piazza, where those wrinkled old women we saw this afternoon sell toy dis- taffs and bric-a-bric."

" Our thoughts are certainly sympathetic, Sam," said Dolly. " I shall often dream of this lovely place. If we were to live here we ought to dress in costume, as they do upon the stage. I could never endure to go about in such scenery i.i ordinary clothes."

" That's because," said Sam, " you" never see this kind of thing in pictures without Italian men and women in all sorts of fancy dress. The best studies of lakes and moun- tains and water-falls, with palaces and foreign costumes, seem to me to be like chromos ; but wouldn't those wrin- kled old women on the Piazza make fine subjects for Professor Herkomer. Forsyth would have "

" Don't mention that name, Sam ; not yet, at all events. It makes me feel as if I would like you to slap me in the face."

" Dolly ! " exclaimed Sam, entirely forgetting what he was going to say about Forsyth.

" It does," said Dolly. " I don't wonder at those strong men in the East End of London beating their wives."