begun to glimmer. Far withdrawn, the craggy
promontory of Sorrento darkened to profoundest blue; and Capri veiled itself in
mist.
 

                                   Chapter II

                                  Cecily Doran

Villa Sannazaro had no architectural beauty; it was a building of considerable
size, irregular, in need of external repair. Through the middle of it ran a
great archway, guarded by copies of the two Molossian hounds which stand before
the Hall of Animals in the Vatican; beneath the arch, on the right-hand side,
was the main entrance to the house. If you passed straight through, you came out
upon a terrace, where grew a magnificent stone-pine and some robust agaves. The
view hence was uninterrupted, embracing the line of the bay from Posillipo to
Cape Minerva. From the parapet bordering the platform you looked over a descent
of twenty feet, into a downward sloping vineyard. Formerly the residence of an
old Neapolitan family, the villa had gone the way of many such ancestral abodes,
and was now let out among several tenants.
    The Spences were established here for the winter. On the occasion of his
marriage, three years ago, Edward Spence relinquished his connection with a
shipping firm, which he represented in Manchester, and went to live in London; a
year and a half later he took his wife to Italy, where they had since remained.
He was not wealthy, but had means sufficient to his demands and prospects.
Thinking for himself in most matters, he chose to abandon money-making at the
juncture when most men deem it incumbent upon them to press their efforts in
that direction; business was repugnant to him, and he saw no reason why he
should sacrifice his own existence to put a possible family in more than easy
circumstances. He had the inclinations of a student, but was untroubled by any
desire to distinguish himself, freedom from the demands of the office meant to
him the possibility of living where he chose, and devoting to his books the best
part of the day instead of its fragmentary leisure. His choice in marriage was
most happy. Eleanor Spence had passed her maiden life in Manchester, but with
parents of healthy mind and of more literature than generally falls to the lot
of a commercial family. Pursuing a natural development, she allied herself with
her husband's freedom of intellect, and found her nature's opportunities in the
life which was to him most suitable. By a rare chance, she was the
broader-minded of the two, the more truly impartial. Her emancipation from dogma
had been so gradual, so unconfused by external pressure, that from her present
standpoint she could