prompt:
Chapter: Scene II.
The rebel camp.

Enter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon.

  Wor. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,
    The liberal and kind offer of the King.
  Ver. 'Twere best he did.
  Wor. Then are we all undone.
    It is not possible, it cannot be
    The King should keep his word in loving us.
    He will suspect us still and find a time
    To punish this offence in other faults.
    Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
    For treason is but trusted like the fox
    Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,
    Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
    Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
    Interpretation will misquote our looks,
    And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
    The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.
    My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;
    It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,
    And an adopted name of privilege-
    A hare-brained Hotspur govern'd by a spleen.
    All his offences live upon my head
    And on his father's. We did train him on;
    And, his corruption being taken from us,
    We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
    Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,
    In any case, the offer of the King.

               Enter Hotspur [and Douglas].

  Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so.
    Here comes your cousin.
  Hot. My uncle is return'd.
    Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.
    Uncle, what news?
  Wor. The King will bid you battle presently.
  Doug. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.
  Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.
  Doug. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.
Exit.
  Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King.
  Hot. Did you beg any, God forbid!
  Wor. I told him gently of our grievances,
    Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,
    By now forswearing that he is forsworn.
    He calls us rebels, traitors, aid will scourge
    With haughty arms this hateful name in us.

                       Enter Douglas.

  Doug. Arm, gentlemen! to arms! for I have thrown
    A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,
    And Westmoreland, that was engag'd, did bear it;
    Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.
  Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King
    And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.
  Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,
    And that no man might draw short breath to-day
    But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,
    How show'd his tasking? Seem'd it in contempt?
    No, by my soul. I never in my life
    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,
    Unless a brother should a brother dare
    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
    He gave you all the duties of a man;
    Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;
    Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;
    Making you ever better than his praise
    By still dispraising praise valued with you;
    And, which became him like a prince indeed,
    He made a blushing cital of himself,
    And chid his truant youth with such a grace
    As if lie mast'red there a double spirit
    Of teaching and of learning instantly.
    There did he pause; but let me tell the world,
    If he outlive the envy of this day,
    England did never owe so sweet a hope,
    So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
  Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured
    Upon his follies. Never did I hear
    Of any prince so wild a libertine.
    But be he as he will, yet once ere night
    I will embrace him with a soldier's arm,
    That he shall shrink under my courtesy.
    Arm, arm with speed! and, fellows, soldiers, friends,
    Better consider what you have to do
    Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
    Can lift your blood up with persuasion.

                       Enter a Messenger.

  Mess. My lord, here are letters for you.
  Hot. I cannot read them now.-
    O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
    To spend that shortness basely were too long
    If life did ride upon a dial's point,
    Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
    An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
    If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
    Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,
    When the intent of bearing them is just.

                  Enter another Messenger.

  Mess. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.
  Hot. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale,
    For I profess not talking. Only this-
    Let each man do his best; and here draw I
    A sword whose temper I intend to stain
    With the best blood that I can meet withal
    In the adventure of this perilous day.
    Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.
    Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
    And by that music let us all embrace;
    For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall
    A second time do such a courtesy.
                          Here they embrace. The trumpets sound.
                                                       [Exeunt.]

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Back in the rebel camp, Worcester insists that Hotspur must not be told that the king has offered all of the insurgents free pardon. He argues that, although his young nephew's trespass will be forgiven, Henry IV will never place his trust in the elder leaders of the rebellion. Vernon reluctantly agrees to remain silent. Accordingly, Worcester tells Hotspur that the king is merciless. Like Douglas, the youth is ready to fight. When Worcester then tells Hotspur that the prince has challenged him to single combat, the young rebel fervently expresses his wish that such a meeting could take place. He remains skeptical regarding the worth of the prince, even though Vernon describes the latter's chivalric behavior and becoming modesty. Learning that even now the "King comes on apace," Hotspur exhorts his companions to fight nobly, and then he embraces them as the trumpets sound the start of the conflict.


prompt:
Chapter: Scene III.
Plain between the camps.

The King enters with his Power.  Alarum to the battle.  Then
enter Douglas
and Sir Walter Blunt.

  Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus
    Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek
    Upon my head?
  Doug. Know then my name is Douglas,
    And I do haunt thee in the battle thus
    Because some tell me that thou art a king.
  Blunt. They tell thee true.
  Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought
    Thy likeness; for instead of thee, King Harry,
    This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,
    Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.
  Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;
    And thou shalt find a king that will revenge
    Lord Stafford's death.

    They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur.

  Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,
    I never had triumph'd upon a Scot.
  Doug. All's done, all's won. Here breathless lies the King.
  Hot. Where?
  Doug. Here.
  Hot. This, Douglas? No. I know this face full well.
    A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;
    Semblably furnish'd like the King himself.
  Doug. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!
    A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear:
    Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?
  Hot. The King hath many marching in his coats.
  Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;
    I'll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece,
    Until I meet the King.
  Hot. Up and away!
    Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.
                                                         Exeunt.

                 Alarum. Enter Falstaff solus.

  Fal. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot
    here. Here's no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you?
    Sir Walter Blunt. There's honour for you! Here's no vanity! I
am
    as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of
me!
    I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my
    rag-of-muffins where they are pepper'd. There's not three of
my
    hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's
end, to
    beg during life. But who comes here?

                         Enter the Prince.

  Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.
    Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff
    Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,
    Whose deaths are yet unreveng'd. I prithee
    Rend me thy sword.
  Fal. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk
Gregory
    never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have
paid
    Percy; I have made him sure.
  Prince. He is indeed, and living to kill thee.
    I prithee lend me thy sword.
  Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not
my
    sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.
  Prince. Give it me. What, is it in the case?
  Fal. Ay, Hal. 'Tis hot, 'tis hot. There's that will sack a
city.

    The Prince draws it out and finds it to he a bottle of sack.

    What, is it a time to jest and dally now?
                              He throws the bottle at him. Exit.
  Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in
my
    way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him
make a
    carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir
Walter
    hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour
comes
    unlook'd for, and there's an end.                      Exit.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: On the battlefield, Sir Walter Blunt, wearing armor the same as that of the king, meets Douglas, who has slain the Lord of Stafford, similarly arrayed for the obvious purpose of misleading the foe. Now the Scotsman is convinced that it is Henry IV himself whom he faces, and he demands that Blunt surrender. Sir Walter does not reveal his true identity. The two fight and Blunt is slain. Hotspur enters, speaking words of high praise to the jubilant Douglas, who believes that now "All's done, all's won" . Young Percy recognizes Blunt and disillusions his fellow warrior. Both leave to renew the fight elsewhere. There is the sound of sudden attack. Then Falstaff appears alone. He finds things quite different from what they had been in London; it is not so easy to get off "shot-free" on the battlefield; he may have to pay the bill, which is a rather steep one. Looking down at the body of Sir Walter Blunt, he finds new reason to believe that seeking honor has its grave limitations. From his soliloquy, it is learned that he led his ragged "troops" into the heart of battle and that all but two or three have been slaughtered. Now it is the prince who arrives. His mood of complete seriousness and dedication to duty is established at once, as he sternly rebukes Falstaff for idleness and asks for the use of his sword. Falstaff boasts about his alleged valor and even claims to have taken care of Hotspur. When Hal assures him that the young rebel survives to slay Falstaff, the fat knight refuses to relinquish his sword, but offers to give Hal his pistol. It is a bottle of sack, not a weapon, which he draws from the case. Hal seizes it, strongly reproves Falstaff, and throws the bottle at him. Alone once more, Falstaff declares that he will slay Percy if that fearsome enemy survives. But he makes it clear that he is not about to go out of his way to find such "grinning honour" as that possessed by the dead Sir Walter Blunt. Clearly, Hotspur will survive to old age as far as Falstaff is concerned.


prompt:
Chapter: Scene IV.
Another part of the field.

Alarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of
Lancaster,
Earl of Westmoreland

  King. I prithee,
    Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.
    Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.
  John. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.
  Prince. I do beseech your Majesty make up,
    Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.
  King. I will do so.
    My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.
  West. Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.
  Prince. Lead me, my lord, I do not need your help;
    And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive
    The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,
    Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on,
    And rebels' arms triumph in massacres!
  John. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland,
    Our duty this way lies. For God's sake, come.
                          [Exeunt Prince John and Westmoreland.]
  Prince. By God, thou hast deceiv'd me, Lancaster!
    I did not think thee lord of such a spirit.
    Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;
    But now, I do respect thee as my soul.
  King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point
    With lustier maintenance than I did look for
    Of such an ungrown warrior.
  Prince. O, this boy
    Lends mettle to us all!                                Exit.

                         Enter Douglas.

  Doug. Another king? They grow like Hydra's heads.
    I am the Douglas, fatal to all those
    That wear those colours on them. What art thou
    That counterfeit'st the person of a king?
  King. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart
    So many of his shadows thou hast met,
    And not the very King. I have two boys
    Seek Percy and thyself about the field;
    But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,
    I will assay thee. So defend thyself.
  Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit;
    And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king.
    But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be,
    And thus I win thee.

   They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince of Wales.

  Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like
    Never to hold it up again! The spirits
    Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms.
    It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,
    Who never promiseth but he means to pay.
                                     They fight. Douglas flieth.
    Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace?
    Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,
    And so hath Clifton. I'll to Clifton straight.
  King. Stay and breathe awhile.
    Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,
    And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,
    In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.
  Prince. O God! they did me too much injury
    That ever said I heark'ned for your death.
    If it were so, I might have let alone
    The insulting hand of Douglas over you,
    Which would have been as speedy in your end
    As all the poisonous potions in the world,
    And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.
  King. Make up to Clifton; I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.
Exit.

                      Enter Hotspur.

  Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.
  Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.
  Hot. My name is Harry Percy.
  Prince. Why, then I see
    A very valiant rebel of the name.
    I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
    To share with me in glory any more.
    Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,
    Nor can one England brook a double reign
    Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
  Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come
    To end the one of us and would to God
    Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!
  Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee,
    And all the budding honours on thy crest
    I'll crop to make a garland for my head.
  Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.
                                                     They fight.

                      Enter Falstaff.

  Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's
play
    here, I can tell you.

   Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down as if

      he were dead. [Exit Douglas.] The Prince killeth Percy.

  Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!
    I better brook the loss of brittle life
    Than those proud titles thou hast won of me.
    They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.
    But thoughts the slave, of life, and life time's fool,
    And time, that takes survey of all the world,
    Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,
    But that the earthy and cold hand of death
    Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,
    And food for-                                        [Dies.]
  Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!
    Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
    When that this body did contain a spirit,
    A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
    But now two paces of the vilest earth
    Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead
    Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
    If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
    I should not make so dear a show of zeal.
    But let my favours hide thy mangled face;
    And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
    For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
    Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
    Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
    But not rememb'red in thy epitaph!
                               He spieth Falstaff on the ground.
    What, old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh
    Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
    I could have better spar'd a better man.
    O, I should have a heavy miss of thee
    If I were much in love with vanity!
    Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
    Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
    Embowell'd will I see thee by-and-by;
    Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.                 Exit.

                     Falstaff riseth up.

  Fal. Embowell'd? If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave
to
    powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to
    counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and
lot
    too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be
a
    counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath
not
    the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man
thereby
    liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect
image
    of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in
the
    which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid
of
    this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should
    counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would
    prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure;
yea,
    and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as
I?
    Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore,
    sirrah [stabs him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you
    along with me.

   He takes up Hotspur on his back. [Enter Prince, and John of
                            Lancaster.

  Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd
    Thy maiden sword.
  John. But, soft! whom have we here?
    Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
  Prince. I did; I saw him dead,
    Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive,
    Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?
    I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes
    Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem'st.
  Fal. No, that's certain! I am not a double man; but if I be not
    Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There 's Percy. If your
father
    will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next
Percy
    himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.
  Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead!
  Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
I
    grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but
we
    rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury
    clock. If I may be believ'd, so; if not, let them that should
    reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it
    upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man

    were alive and would deny it, zounds! I would make him eat a
    piece of my sword.
  John. This is the strangest tale that ever I beard.
  Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.
    Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.
    For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
    I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
                                           A retreat is sounded.
    The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
    Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,
    To see what friends are living, who are dead.
                          Exeunt [Prince Henry and Prince John].
  Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me,
God
    reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll
purge,
    and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
                                    Exit [bearing off the body].

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The king bids the Prince of Wales and his brother, John of Lancaster, to rest. Despite his wounds, the prince will not do so: ". . . God forbid a shallow scratch should drive / The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, / Where . . . rebels' arms triumph in massacres" . He has high praise for his younger brother, whose courage inspires them all. The two depart. Douglas enters, faces Henry IV, and exclaims: "Another king!" He identifies himself and demands to know the true identity of his foe. The king expresses his regret that, until now, the Scottish warrior has met only "his shadows" -- nobles whom he mistook for the king. While his son seeks out Percy, Henry will take on Douglas. The king is in danger of defeat when Prince Hal enters. The latter identifies himself as the heir-apparent, engages Douglas in single combat, and forces his adversary to flee for his life. King Henry is particularly touched by this evidence of his son's courage. After the king leaves, Hotspur enters, addresses the prince by name, and identifies himself. Now at last Harry does meet Harry face to face in combat. Falstaff appears to cheer Prince Hal, who will, as he says, "find no boy's play here" . At this point in the action, Douglas re-enters and engages Falstaff, who soon falls down as if he were dead. Just as Douglas leaves, Hotspur himself is wounded and falls. In moving words, young Percy begins to recite his own epitaph but dies before he can finish. It is the prince who, in generous terms, completes it. The prince sees the fallen Sir John Falstaff. Believing his old companion to be dead , he now provides an epitaph for "Poor Jack," referring to him as "so fat a deer" and declaring that he will see him "embowell'd" . Hal departs. Falstaff promptly revives and rises up. As in earlier, far less serious, episodes, he indulges in witty rationalization for his unheroic behavior -- specifically, in this case, counterfeiting death. Next, he expresses his fear of "this gunpowder Percy," who is apparently dead. Perhaps, he says, young Percy is "counterfeiting" as Falstaff himself did. He decides to "make him sure" -- and then to claim that it was he who killed the valiant rebel leader. No living person is nearby to see him; so he stabs the corpse of the fallen Hotspur. He lifts the body onto his back just as Prince Haland John of Lancaster re-enter. Prince John is puzzled: Did not Hal tell him, that the old knight had been killed? Hal replies that indeed he saw Falstaff "dead, / Breathless and bleeding on the ground" . Sir John, he concludes, is not what he seems. Indeed he is not, replies Falstaff. As conqueror of the great Percy, he looks to be made either an earl or a duke. He is deeply shocked to hear the prince claim to have slain Hotspur. Prince Hal is not perturbed; he is not concerned with refuting Sir John. As he says to his brother, if a lie will serve Falstaff, he will not interfere. A trumpet sounds retreat. All know that the rebels have been defeated. The two princes leave to find out how their comrades have fared. Falstaff will follow -- for his reward, as he makes clear.


prompt:
Chapter: Scene V.
Another part of the field.

The trumpets sound. [Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John
of Lancaster,
Earl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.

  King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.
    Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,
    Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
    And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
    Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?
    Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
    A noble earl, and many a creature else
    Had been alive this hour,
    If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne
    Betwixt our armies true intelligence.
  Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to;
    And I embrace this fortune patiently,
    Since not to be avoided it fails on me.
  King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;
    Other offenders we will pause upon.
                         Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded].
    How goes the field?
  Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
    The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,
    The Noble Percy slain and all his men
    Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
    And falling from a hill,he was so bruis'd
    That the pursuers took him. At my tent
    The Douglas is, and I beseech Your Grace
    I may dispose of him.
  King. With all my heart.
  Prince. Then brother John of Lancaster, to you
    This honourable bounty shall belong.
    Go to the Douglas and deliver him
    Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free.
    His valour shown upon our crests today
    Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
    Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
  John. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy,
    Which I shall give away immediately.
  King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.
    You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,
    Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed
    To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
    Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.
    Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales
    To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
    Rebellion in this laud shall lose his sway,
    Meeting the check of such another day;
    And since this business so fair is done,
    Let us not leave till all our own be won.
                                                         Exeunt.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The insurrection having been repressed, King Henry orders the execution of Worcester and Vernon. The fate of the other rebels will be decided later. Prince Hal intercedes on behalf of the Earl of Douglas, and his life is spared. Prince John of Lancaster is given the honor of setting the Scotsman free. The king then announces that he will divide his forces. One army, led by Prince John and the Earl of Westmoreland, will move against the forces assembled by Northumberland and Archbishop Scroop in northern England. Accompanied by Prince Hal, Henry himself will march to Wales to fight Glendower and Mortimer.


prompt:
Chapter: "The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business
at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead
of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way
apart. Oh, Lucy!"

"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by
the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the
two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row
of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the
English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet
Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the
notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that
was the only other decoration of the wall. "Charlotte, don't you feel,
too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of
other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired."

"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying
down her fork.

"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her
letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to
do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!"

"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued; "but it does seem hard
that you shouldn't have a view."

Lucy felt that she had been selfish. "Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me:
of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first
vacant room in the front--" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part
of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother--a piece of
generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

"No, no. You must have it."

"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy."

"She would never forgive me."

The ladies' voices grew animated, and--if the sad truth be owned--a
little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness
they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one
of them--one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad--leant
forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He
said:

"I have a view, I have a view."

Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them
over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that
they would "do" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was
ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy
build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something
childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.
What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her
glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was
probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the
swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then
said: "A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!"

"This is my son," said the old man; "his name's George. He has a view
too."

"Ah," said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.

"What I mean," he continued, "is that you can have our rooms, and we'll
have yours. We'll change."

The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with
the new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little
as possible, and said "Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the
question."

"Why?" said the old man, with both fists on the table.

"Because it is quite out of the question, thank you."

"You see, we don't like to take--" began Lucy. Her cousin again
repressed her.

"But why?" he persisted. "Women like looking at a view; men don't." And
he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,
saying, "George, persuade them!"

"It's so obvious they should have the rooms," said the son. "There's
nothing else to say."

He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed
and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in
for what is known as "quite a scene," and she had an odd feeling that
whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened
till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with--well, with something
quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the
old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not
change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half an
hour.

Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was
powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any
one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as
much as to say, "Are you all like this?" And two little old ladies, who
were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs
of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating "We are not; we are
genteel."

"Eat your dinner, dear," she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with
the meat that she had once censured.

Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.

"Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will
make a change."

Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The
curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout
but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,
cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired
decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, oh! Why, it's
Mr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,
however bad the rooms are. Oh!"

Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:

"How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you
helped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter."

The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember
the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward
pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by
Lucy.

"I AM so glad to see you," said the girl, who was in a state of
spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if
her cousin had permitted it. "Just fancy how small the world is. Summer
Street, too, makes it so specially funny."

"Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street," said Miss
Bartlett, filling up the gap, "and she happened to tell me in the course
of conversation that you have just accepted the living--"

"Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you
at Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: 'Mr. Beebe
is--'"

"Quite right," said the clergyman. "I move into the Rectory at Summer
Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming
neighbourhood."

"Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner." Mr. Beebe
bowed.

"There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often
we get him to ch---- The church is rather far off, I mean."

"Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner."

"I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it."

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than
to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the girl
whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that she
had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and
he was first in the field. "Don't neglect the country round," his advice
concluded. "The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by
Settignano, or something of that sort."

"No!" cried a voice from the top of the table. "Mr. Beebe, you are
wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato."

"That lady looks so clever," whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. "We
are in luck."

And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told
them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to
get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how
much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had decided,
almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way they looked,
kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose the voice of
the clever lady, crying: "Prato! They must go to Prato. That place is
too sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in shaking off the
trammels of respectability, as you know."

The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned
moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in
the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave her no
extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when she
rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little
bow.

The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,
but by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across
something.

She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the
curtains--curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with
more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing
good-evening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and
Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt
of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even
more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid
comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really Italy?

Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which
had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.
Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and
forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some
invisible obstacle. "We are most grateful to you," she was saying.
"The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a
peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure."

He expressed his regret.

"Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us
at dinner?"

"Emerson."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"We are friendly--as one is in pensions."

"Then I will say no more."

He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

"I am, as it were," she concluded, "the chaperon of my young cousin,
Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation
to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.
I hope I acted for the best."

"You acted very naturally," said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after
a few moments added: "All the same, I don't think much harm would have
come of accepting."

"No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation."

"He is rather a peculiar man." Again he hesitated, and then said gently:
"I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you
to show gratitude. He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly
what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would
value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than
he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it
difficult--to understand people who speak the truth."

Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so
always hope that people will be nice."

"I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every
point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will
differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When
he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no
tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and
he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about
him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of
it."

"Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?"

Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching
of the lips.

"And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?"

"I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice
creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's
mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist."

"Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to
have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and
suspicious?"

"Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that."

"But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?"

He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,
and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.

"Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why
didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I
haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as
well as all dinner-time."

"He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see
good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman."

"My dear Lucia--"

"Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh;
Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man."

"Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will
approve of Mr. Beebe."

"I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy."

"I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable
world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind
the times."

"Yes," said Lucy despondently.

There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval
was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy
Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not
determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss
Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am
afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion."

And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must
be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."

Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been
smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed
to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter
gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying
success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the
necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly
emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects
agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than
the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding
tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe,
not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found
in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one
better than something else.

"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English."

"Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed."

"Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was
more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner."

"I think he was meaning to be kind."

"Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett.

"Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin's account."

"Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.

Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed
it.

"About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"

"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?"

"So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are
so difficult, I sometimes think."

She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking
extremely pleasant.

"Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad.
Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what
I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and
ask you. He would be so pleased."

"Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms now.
The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be."

Miss Bartlett was silent.

"I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference."

Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett
reply: "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to
turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?"

She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her
message.

"Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events."

Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:

"Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead."

The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.

"My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out."

Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the
delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.

"Poor young man!" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.

"How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to
keep polite."

"In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready," said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.

"Oh, dear!" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. "Gentlemen sometimes do not
realize--" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand
and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly
realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced
to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she
committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For
she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the half-hour
crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and
said:

"I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move."

"How you do do everything," said Lucy.

"Naturally, dear. It is my affair."

"But I would like to help you."

"No, dear."

Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So
Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet--there was a rebellious spirit
in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less
delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room
without any feeling of joy.

"I want to explain," said Miss Bartlett, "why it is that I have taken
the largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you;
but I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure
your mother would not like it."

Lucy was bewildered.

"If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under
an obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in
my small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a
guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this."

"Mother wouldn't mind I'm sure," said Lucy, but again had the sense of
larger and unsuspected issues.

Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as
she wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and when
she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the clean
night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to see the
lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato, and the
foot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.

Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the
door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards
led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was
then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on
which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.

"What does it mean?" she thought, and she examined it carefully by the
light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,
obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to
destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,
since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it
carefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it
clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed
heavily according to her habit, and went to bed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: We open in Florence at the Pension Bertolini, a pension for British travelers. Young Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin, Charlotte Bartlett, are bemoaning the poor rooms that they have been given. They were promised rooms with views. The two women sit at dinner in their pension, along with the other guests. Lucy is disappointed because the pension hostess has turned out to be British, and the decor of the pension seems lifted right out of a room in London. While Miss Bartlett and Lucy talk, an old man interrupts them to tell them that his room has a nice view. The man is Mr. Emerson; he introduces his son, George Emerson. Mr. Emerson offers Miss Bartlett and Lucy a room swap. The men will take the rooms over the courtyard, and Lucy and Charlotte will take the more pleasant rooms that have views. Miss Bartlett is horrified by the offer, and refuses to accept; she begins to ignore the Emersons and resolves to switch pensions the next day. Just then, Mr. Beebe, a clergyman that Lucy and Charlotte know from England, enters. Lucy is delighted to meet someone she knows, and she shows it; now that Mr. Beebe is here, they must stay at the Pension Bertolini. Lucy has heard in letters from her mother that Mr. Beebe has just accepted a position at the parish of Summer Street, the parish of which Lucy is a member. Mr. Beebe and Lucy have a pleasant talk over dinner, in which he gives Lucy advice about the sites of Florence. This vacation is Lucy's first time in Florence. Soon, almost everyone at the table is giving Lucy and Miss. Bartlett advice. The torrent of advice signifies the acceptance of Lucy and Miss Bartlett into the good graces of the pension guests; Lucy notes that the Emersons are outside of this fold. After the meal, some of the guests move to the drawing room. Miss Bartlett discusses the Emersons with Mr. Beebe; Beebe does not have a very high opinion of Mr. Emerson, but he thinks him harmless, and he believes no harm would have come from Miss Bartlett accepting Mr. Emerson's offer. Mr. Emerson is a Socialist, a term that is used by Mr. Beebe and Miss Bartlett with clear disapproval. Miss Bartlett continues to ask Mr. Beebe about what she should have done about the offer, and if she should apologize, until Mr. Beebe becomes annoyed and leaves. An old lady approaches the two women and talks with Miss Bartlett about Mr. Emerson's offer. Lucy asks if perhaps there was something beautiful about the offer, even if it was not delicate. Miss Bartlett is puzzled by the question; to her, beauty and delicacy are the same thing. Mr. Beebe returns: he has arranged with Mr. Emerson to have the women take the room. Miss Bartlett is not quite sure what to do, but she accepts. She takes the larger room, which was occupied by George, because she does not want Lucy to be indebted to a young man. She bids Lucy goodnight and inspect her new quarters, and she finds a piece of paper pinned to the washstand that has an enormous "note of interrogation" scrawled on it. Though she feels threatened by it, she saves it for George between two pieces of blotting paper.


prompt:
Chapter: It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright
bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are
not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport
in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to
fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings,
to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble
churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the
embankment of the road.

Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy
foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for
some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the
window. No one was inside it, except one tourist; but its platforms were
overflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried to
hang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their faces
to make them let go. Then soldiers appeared--good-looking, undersized
men--wearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a great-coat
which had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them walked officers,
looking foolish and fierce, and before them went little boys, turning
somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became entangled in their
ranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a swarm of ants.
One of the little boys fell down, and some white bullocks came out of
an archway. Indeed, if it had not been for the good advice of an old man
who was selling button-hooks, the road might never have got clear.

Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away,
and the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of
Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing
but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as
well that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented on
Lucy's leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window
before she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the
best of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin
had done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among the
crumbs.

A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett
was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the
morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would
rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of
course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of
course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy
would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!

At this point the clever lady broke in.

"If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you
can neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be
perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa
Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to school
with them, she lets them go in sailor-hats instead. Every one takes
them for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained tightly
behind."

Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli's
daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being
so very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a
long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would be
delighted.

"I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if you
bring me luck, we shall have an adventure."

Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to
see where Santa Croce was.

"Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker.
He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true Italy--he does
not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient
observation."

This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and
started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last.
The Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream.

Miss Lavish--for that was the clever lady's name--turned to the right
along the sunny Lung' Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down
the side streets cut like a knife, didn't it? Ponte alle
Grazie--particularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San
Miniato--beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that kissed
a murderer--Miss Honeychurch would remember the story. The men on the
river were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most information.) Then
Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she
stopped, and she cried:

"A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has its
own smell."

"Is it a very nice smell?" said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother
a distaste to dirt.

"One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for
life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!" bowing right and left. "Look at that
adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple soul!"

So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence,
short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's
grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so
cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears,
only increased the sense of festivity.

"Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will
never repent of a little civility to your inferiors. That is the
true democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you're
shocked."

"Indeed, I'm not!" exclaimed Lucy. "We are Radicals, too, out and out.
My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful about
Ireland."

"I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy."

"Oh, please--! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical
again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our
front door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the
Tories; but mother says nonsense, a tramp."

"Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?"

"No--in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over
the Weald."

Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.

"What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the very
nicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway--a Radical if ever there
was?"

"Very well indeed."

"And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?"

"Why, she rents a field of us! How funny!"

Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured: "Oh, you
have property in Surrey?"

"Hardly any," said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. "Only thirty
acres--just the garden, all downhill, and some fields."

Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her
aunt's Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember the last
name of Lady Louisa someone, who had taken a house near Summer Street
the other year, but she had not liked it, which was odd of her. And just
as Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke off and exclaimed:

"Bless us! Bless us and save us! We've lost the way."

Certainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce, the tower
of which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But Miss
Lavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that Lucy
had followed her with no misgivings.

"Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have
taken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would jeer at us!
What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is
what I call an adventure."

Lucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible solution,
that they should ask the way there.

"Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, NOT to
look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan't let you carry it. We will
simply drift."

Accordingly they drifted through a series of those grey-brown streets,
neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the
city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady
Louisa, and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy
appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the
living terra-cotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can
ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from
the garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against
circlets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more
beautiful; but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her
forward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a
mile.

The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or
rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste
out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly
of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the
great unknown. But it gave them strength to drift into another Piazza,
large and dusty, on the farther side of which rose a black-and-white
facade of surpassing ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It
was Santa Croce. The adventure was over.

"Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to speak to
them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they are going into
the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!"

"We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us their
rooms. They were so very kind."

"Look at their figures!" laughed Miss Lavish. "They walk through my
Italy like a pair of cows. It's very naughty of me, but I would like
to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who
couldn't pass it."

"What would you ask us?"

Miss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy's arm, as if to suggest
that she, at all events, would get full marks. In this exalted mood they
reached the steps of the great church, and were about to enter it when
Miss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up her arms, and cried:

"There goes my local-colour box! I must have a word with him!"

And in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak
flapping in the wind; nor did she slacken speed till she caught up an
old man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon the arm.

Lucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired. The
beggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she remembered that
a young girl ought not to loiter in public places. She descended slowly
into the Piazza with the intention of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was
really almost too original. But at that moment Miss Lavish and her
local-colour box moved also, and disappeared down a side street, both
gesticulating largely. Tears of indignation came to Lucy's eyes partly
because Miss Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her
Baedeker. How could she find her way home? How could she find her way
about in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never
be in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high spirits,
talking as a woman of culture, and half persuading herself that she
was full of originality. Now she entered the church depressed and
humiliated, not even able to remember whether it was built by the
Franciscans or the Dominicans. Of course, it must be a wonderful
building. But how like a barn! And how very cold! Of course, it
contained frescoes by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values
she was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell
her which they were? She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be
enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was
no one even to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved
the nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the one
that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin.

Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of
acquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the
Italian notices--the notices that forbade people to introduce dogs into
the church--the notice that prayed people, in the interest of health and
out of respect to the sacred edifice in which they found themselves,
not to spit. She watched the tourists; their noses were as red as their
Baedekers, so cold was Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that
overtook three Papists--two he-babies and a she-baby--who began their
career by sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to
the Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it
very slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone with
their fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads, and then
retreated. What could this mean? They did it again and again. Then Lucy
realized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for some saint, hoping
to acquire virtue. Punishment followed quickly. The smallest he-baby
stumbled over one of the sepulchral slabs so much admired by Mr. Ruskin,
and entangled his feet in the features of a recumbent bishop. Protestant
as she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell heavily upon
the prelate's upturned toes.

"Hateful bishop!" exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had darted
forward also. "Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into the sunshine,
little boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that is where you ought
to be. Intolerable bishop!"

The child screamed frantically at these words, and at these dreadful
people who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his bruises, and told him
not to be superstitious.

"Look at him!" said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. "Here's a mess: a baby hurt,
cold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a church?"

The child's legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old Mr.
Emerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately an
Italian lady, who ought to have been saying her prayers, came to the
rescue. By some mysterious virtue, which mothers alone possess, she
stiffened the little boy's back-bone and imparted strength to his knees.
He stood. Still gibbering with agitation, he walked away.

"You are a clever woman," said Mr. Emerson. "You have done more than
all the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I do believe in
those who make their fellow-creatures happy. There is no scheme of the
universe--"

He paused for a phrase.

"Niente," said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers.

"I'm not sure she understands English," suggested Lucy.

In her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She was
determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate,
and, if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett's civility by some gracious
reference to the pleasant rooms.

"That woman understands everything," was Mr. Emerson's reply. "But what
are you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you through with the
church?"

"No," cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. "I came here with Miss
Lavish, who was to explain everything; and just by the door--it is too
bad!--she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a time, I had to come
in by myself."

"Why shouldn't you?" said Mr. Emerson.

"Yes, why shouldn't you come by yourself?" said the son, addressing the
young lady for the first time.

"But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker."

"Baedeker?" said Mr. Emerson. "I'm glad it's THAT you minded. It's worth
minding, the loss of a Baedeker. THAT'S worth minding."

Lucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and was not
sure whither it would lead her.

"If you've no Baedeker," said the son, "you'd better join us." Was this
where the idea would lead? She took refuge in her dignity.

"Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you do not
suppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to help with the
child, and to thank you for so kindly giving us your rooms last night. I
hope that you have not been put to any great inconvenience."

"My dear," said the old man gently, "I think that you are repeating what
you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy; but
you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead what
part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a real
pleasure."

Now, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been
furious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one's temper as it
is difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get cross. Mr.
Emerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour him. On the other
hand, his son was a young man, and she felt that a girl ought to be
offended with him, or at all events be offended before him. It was at
him that she gazed before replying.

"I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see, if you
will kindly tell me which they are."

The son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the way to
the Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about him. She felt
like a child in school who had answered a question rightly.

The chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and out of
them rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to worship Giotto,
not by tactful valuations, but by the standards of the spirit.

"Remember," he was saying, "the facts about this church of Santa Croce;
how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before
any taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these
frescoes--now, unhappily, ruined by restoration--is untroubled by the
snares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic, more
pathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge and
technical cleverness against a man who truly feels!"

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church.
"Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means
the workmen weren't paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no
truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I
do, and he is shooting into the sky like an air balloon."

He was referring to the fresco of the "Ascension of St. John." Inside,
the lecturer's voice faltered, as well it might. The audience shifted
uneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she ought not to be with
these men; but they had cast a spell over her. They were so serious and
so strange that she could not remember how to behave.

"Now, did this happen, or didn't it? Yes or no?"

George replied:

"It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to
heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs; and if I got there I should
like my friends to lean out of it, just as they do here."

"You will never go up," said his father. "You and I, dear boy, will
lie at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will disappear as
surely as our work survives."

"Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint, whoever
he is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened at all."

"Pardon me," said a frigid voice. "The chapel is somewhat small for two
parties. We will incommode you no longer."

The lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his flock,
for they held prayer-books as well as guide-books in their hands. They
filed out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were the two little old
ladies of the Pension Bertolini--Miss Teresa and Miss Catherine Alan.

"Stop!" cried Mr. Emerson. "There's plenty of room for us all. Stop!"

The procession disappeared without a word.

Soon the lecturer could be heard in the next chapel, describing the life
of St. Francis.

"George, I do believe that clergyman is the Brixton curate."

George went into the next chapel and returned, saying "Perhaps he is. I
don't remember."

"Then I had better speak to him and remind him who I am. It's that Mr.
Eager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go
and say we are sorry. Hadn't I better? Then perhaps he will come back."

"He will not come back," said George.

But Mr. Emerson, contrite and unhappy, hurried away to apologize to the
Rev. Cuthbert Eager. Lucy, apparently absorbed in a lunette, could hear
the lecture again interrupted, the anxious, aggressive voice of the old
man, the curt, injured replies of his opponent. The son, who took every
little contretemps as if it were a tragedy, was listening also.

"My father has that effect on nearly everyone," he informed her. "He
will try to be kind."

"I hope we all try," said she, smiling nervously.

"Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people
because he loves them; and they find him out, and are offended, or
frightened."

"How silly of them!" said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized; "I
think that a kind action done tactfully--"

"Tact!"

He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong
answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel.
For a young man his face was rugged, and--until the shadows fell upon
it--hard. Enshadowed, it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once again
at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of
acorns. Healthy and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness,
of tragedy that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon
passed; it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle. Born
of silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr. Emerson returned,
and she could re-enter the world of rapid talk, which was alone familiar
to her.

"Were you snubbed?" asked his son tranquilly.

"But we have spoilt the pleasure of I don't know how many people. They
won't come back."

"...full of innate sympathy...quickness to perceive good in
others...vision of the brotherhood of man..." Scraps of the lecture on
St. Francis came floating round the partition wall.

"Don't let us spoil yours," he continued to Lucy. "Have you looked at
those saints?"

"Yes," said Lucy. "They are lovely. Do you know which is the tombstone
that is praised in Ruskin?"

He did not know, and suggested that they should try to guess it. George,
rather to her relief, refused to move, and she and the old man wandered
not unpleasantly about Santa Croce, which, though it is like a barn,
has harvested many beautiful things inside its walls. There were also
beggars to avoid and guides to dodge round the pillars, and an old lady
with her dog, and here and there a priest modestly edging to his
Mass through the groups of tourists. But Mr. Emerson was only half
interested. He watched the lecturer, whose success he believed he had
impaired, and then he anxiously watched his son.

"Why will he look at that fresco?" he said uneasily. "I saw nothing in
it."

"I like Giotto," she replied. "It is so wonderful what they say about
his tactile values. Though I like things like the Della Robbia babies
better."

"So you ought. A baby is worth a dozen saints. And my baby's worth the
whole of Paradise, and as far as I can see he lives in Hell."

Lucy again felt that this did not do.

"In Hell," he repeated. "He's unhappy."

"Oh, dear!" said Lucy.

"How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? What more is one
to give him? And think how he has been brought up--free from all the
superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name
of God. With such an education as that, I thought he was bound to grow
up happy."

She was no theologian, but she felt that here was a very foolish old
man, as well as a very irreligious one. She also felt that her mother
might not like her talking to that kind of person, and that Charlotte
would object most strongly.

"What are we to do with him?" he asked. "He comes out for his holiday to
Italy, and behaves--like that; like the little child who ought to have
been playing, and who hurt himself upon the tombstone. Eh? What did you
say?"

Lucy had made no suggestion. Suddenly he said:

"Now don't be stupid over this. I don't require you to fall in love with
my boy, but I do think you might try and understand him. You are nearer
his age, and if you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible. You
might help me. He has known so few women, and you have the time.
You stop here several weeks, I suppose? But let yourself go. You are
inclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself
go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand,
and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By
understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be
good for both of you."

To this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer.

"I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."

"And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.

"The old trouble; things won't fit."

"What things?"

"The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"

In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting
poetry, he said:

  "'From far, from eve and morning,
   And yon twelve-winded sky,
   The stuff of life to knit me
   Blew hither: here am I'

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that
we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life
is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But
why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and
work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow."

Miss Honeychurch assented.

"Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of
the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a
Yes."

Suddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy
because the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a tangle or a wind,
or a Yes, or something!

"I'm very sorry," she cried. "You'll think me unfeeling, but--but--"
Then she became matronly. "Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no
particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can generally forget
them at the piano; and collecting stamps did no end of good for my
brother. Perhaps Italy bores him; you ought to try the Alps or the
Lakes."

The old man's face saddened, and he touched her gently with his hand.
This did not alarm her; she thought that her advice had impressed him
and that he was thanking her for it. Indeed, he no longer alarmed her
at all; she regarded him as a kind thing, but quite silly. Her feelings
were as inflated spiritually as they had been an hour ago esthetically,
before she lost Baedeker. The dear George, now striding towards them
over the tombstones, seemed both pitiable and absurd. He approached, his
face in the shadow. He said:

"Miss Bartlett."

"Oh, good gracious me!" said Lucy, suddenly collapsing and again seeing
the whole of life in a new perspective. "Where? Where?"

"In the nave."

"I see. Those gossiping little Miss Alans must have--" She checked
herself.

"Poor girl!" exploded Mr. Emerson. "Poor girl!"

She could not let this pass, for it was just what she was feeling
herself.

"Poor girl? I fail to understand the point of that remark. I think
myself a very fortunate girl, I assure you. I'm thoroughly happy, and
having a splendid time. Pray don't waste time mourning over me. There's
enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.
Good-bye. Thank you both so much for all your kindness. Ah, yes! there
does come my cousin. A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a wonderful
church."

She joined her cousin.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Lucy looks out her window onto the beautiful scene of a Florence morning. Miss Bartlett interrupts her reverie and encourages Lucy to begin her day; in the dining room, they argue politely about whether or not Miss Bartlett should accompany Lucy on a bit of sightseeing. Lucy is eager to go but does not wish to tire her cousin, and Miss Bartlett, though tired, does not want Lucy to go alone. A "clever lady," whose name is Miss Lavish, intercedes. After some discussion, it is agreed that Miss Lavish and Lucy will go out together to the church of Santa Croce. The two women go out, and have a lively conversation about politics and people they know in England. Suddenly, they are lost. Lucy tries to consult her Baedeker travel guide, but Miss Lavish will have none of it. She takes the guide book away. In their wanderings, they cross the Square of the Annunziata; the buildings and sculptures are the most beautiful things Lucy has ever seen, but Miss Lavish drags her forward. The women eventually reach Santa Croce, and Miss Lavish spots Mr. Emerson and George. She does not want to run into them, and seems disgusted by the two men. Lucy defends them. As they reach the steps of the church, Miss Lavish sees someone she knows and rushes off. Lucy waits for a while, but then she sees Miss Lavish wander down the street with her friend and Lucy realizes she has been abandoned. Upset, she goes into Santa Croce alone. The church is cold, and without her Baedeker travel guide Lucy feels unable to correctly view the many famous works of art housed there. She sees a child hurt his foot on a tomb sculpture and rushes to help him. She then finds herself side-by-side with Mr. Emerson, who is also helping the child. The child's mother appears and sets the boy on his way. Lucy feels determined to be good to the Emersons despite the disapproval of the other pension guests. But when Mr. Emerson and George invite her to join them in their little tour of the church, she knows that she should be offended by such an invitation. She tries to seem offended, but Mr. Emerson sees immediately that she is trying to behave as she has seen others behave, and tells her so. Strangely, Lucy is not angry about his forwardness but is instead somewhat impressed. She asks to be taken to look at the Giotto frescoes. The trio comes across a tour group, including some tourists from the pension, led by a clergyman named Mr. Eager. Mr. Eager spews commentary on the frescoes, which Mr. Emerson heartily disagrees with; he is skeptical of the praise and romanticizing of the past. The clergyman icily leads the group away. Mr. Emerson, worried that he has offended them, rushes off to apologize. George confides in Lucy that his father always has that effect on people. His earnestness and bluntness are repellent to others. Mr. Emerson returns, having been snubbed. Mr. Emerson and Lucy go off to see other works. Mr. Emerson, sincere and earnest, shares his concerns for his son. George is unhappy. Lucy is not sure how to react to this direct and honest talk; Mr. Emerson asks her to befriend his son. She is close to his age and Mr. Emerson sense much that is good in the girl. He hopes that these two young people can learn from each other. George is deeply saddened by life itself and the transience of human existence; this cerebral sorrow all seems very strange to Lucy. George suddenly approaches them, to tell Lucy that Miss Bartlett is here. Lucy realizes that one of the old women in the tour group must have told Charlotte that Lucy was with the Emersons. When she seems distressed, Mr. Emerson expresses sympathy for her. Lucy becomes cold, and she informs him that she has no need for his pity. She goes to join her cousin.