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      OLIVE...
      IN ITALY


   BY MORAY DALTON


   [Illustration]


       London
   T. FISHER UNWIN
       MCMIX




[_All Rights Reserved_]




    "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the
    wine is red; it is full mixed, and He poureth out of the
    same. As for the dregs thereof: all the ungodly of the
    earth shall drink them...."




CONTENTS


    BOOK I.                 PAGE

      SIENA                   17


    BOOK II.

      FLORENCE               115


    BOOK III.

      ROME                   213




OLIVE IN ITALY




BOOK I.--SIENA




CHAPTER I


"I believe that Olive Agar is going to tell you that she can't pay her
bill," said the landlady's daughter as she set the breakfast tray down
on the kitchen table.

"Good gracious, Gwen, how you do startle one! Why?"

"She began again about the toast, and I told her straight that you
always set yourself against any unnecessary cooking. Meat and
vegetables must be done, I said, but those who can't relish bread as
it comes from the baker's, and plain boiled potatoes, can go without,
I said. Then she says, of course I must do as my mother tells me, and
would I ask you to step up and see her presently."

"Perhaps you were a bit too sharp with her."

The girl sniffed resentfully. "Good riddance if she goes," she called
after her mother.

Mrs Simons knocked perfunctorily at the dining-room door.

A young voice bade her come in. "I wanted to tell you that I heard
from my cousins in Italy this morning. I am going to stay with them
for a little, so I shall be leaving you at the end of the week."

The landlady's cold stare was disconcerting. There was a distinct note
of disapproval in her voice as she answered, "I do not know much about
Italy." She seemed to think it not quite a seemly subject, yet she
pursued it. "I should have thought it was better for a young lady
without parents or friends to find some occupation in her own
country."

Olive smiled. "Ah, but I hate boiled potatoes, and I think I shall
love Italy and Italian cooking. You remember the Athenians who were
always seeking some new thing? They had a good time, Mrs Simons."

"I hope you may not live to wish those words unsaid, miss," the woman
answered primly. "You have as good as sold your birthright, as Esau
did, in that speech."

"He was much nicer than Jacob."

"Oh, miss, how can you! But, after all, I suppose you are not
altogether one of us since you have foreign cousins. What's bred in
the bone comes out in the flesh they say."

"I am quite English, if that is what you mean. My aunt married an
Italian."

Mrs Simons's eyes had wandered from the girl's face to the heavy
chandelier tied up in yellow muslin, and thence, by way of "Bubbles,"
framed in tarnished gilt, to the door. "Ah, well, I shall take your
notice," she said finally.

She went down again into the kitchen. "I never know where to have
her," she complained. "There's something queer and foreign about her
for all she says. What's bred in the bone! I said that to her face,
and I repeat it to you, Gwendolen."

Mrs Simons might have added that adventures are to the adventurous.
Olive's father was Jack Agar, of the Agars of Lyme, and he married his
cousin. If Mrs Simons had known all that must be implied in this
statement she might have held forth at some length on the subject of
heredity, and have traced the girl's dislike of boiled potatoes to her
great-great-uncle's friendship with Lord Byron, and her longing for
sunshine to a still more remote ancestress, lady-in-waiting to a
princess at the court of Le Roi Soleil.

Adventures to the adventurous! The Agars were always aware of the
magnificent possibilities of life and love, and inclined to ignore the
unpleasant actualities of existence and the married state; hence some
remarkable histories, and, in the end, ruin. Olive was the last of the
old name. Jack Agar had died at thirty, leaving his wife and child
totally unprovided for but for the little annuity that had sufficed
for dress in the far-off salad days, and that now must be made to
maintain them. Olive was sent to a cheap boarding-school, where she
proved herself a fool at arithmetic; history, very good;