prompt:
Chapter: They were all at Charing Cross to see Lilia off--Philip, Harriet, Irma,
Mrs. Herriton herself. Even Mrs. Theobald, squired by Mr. Kingcroft,
had braved the journey from Yorkshire to bid her only daughter good-bye.
Miss Abbott was likewise attended by numerous relatives, and the sight
of so many people talking at once and saying such different things
caused Lilia to break into ungovernable peals of laughter.

"Quite an ovation," she cried, sprawling out of her first-class
carriage. "They'll take us for royalty. Oh, Mr. Kingcroft, get us
foot-warmers."

The good-natured young man hurried away, and Philip, taking his place,
flooded her with a final stream of advice and injunctions--where to
stop, how to learn Italian, when to use mosquito-nets, what pictures
to look at. "Remember," he concluded, "that it is only by going off the
track that you get to know the country. See the little towns--Gubbio,
Pienza, Cortona, San Gemignano, Monteriano. And don't, let me beg
you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy's only a museum of
antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italians, for the people
are more marvellous than the land."

"How I wish you were coming, Philip," she said, flattered at the
unwonted notice her brother-in-law was giving her.

"I wish I were." He could have managed it without great difficulty,
for his career at the Bar was not so intense as to prevent occasional
holidays. But his family disliked his continual visits to the Continent,
and he himself often found pleasure in the idea that he was too busy to
leave town.

"Good-bye, dear every one. What a whirl!" She caught sight of her little
daughter Irma, and felt that a touch of maternal solemnity was required.
"Good-bye, darling. Mind you're always good, and do what Granny tells
you."

She referred not to her own mother, but to her mother-in-law, Mrs.
Herriton, who hated the title of Granny.

Irma lifted a serious face to be kissed, and said cautiously, "I'll do
my best."

"She is sure to be good," said Mrs. Herriton, who was standing pensively
a little out of the hubbub. But Lilia was already calling to Miss
Abbott, a tall, grave, rather nice-looking young lady who was conducting
her adieus in a more decorous manner on the platform.

"Caroline, my Caroline! Jump in, or your chaperon will go off without
you."

And Philip, whom the idea of Italy always intoxicated, had started
again, telling her of the supreme moments of her coming journey--the
Campanile of Airolo, which would burst on her when she emerged from the
St. Gothard tunnel, presaging the future; the view of the Ticino and
Lago Maggiore as the train climbed the slopes of Monte Cenere; the view
of Lugano, the view of Como--Italy gathering thick around her now--the
arrival at her first resting-place, when, after long driving through
dark and dirty streets, she should at last behold, amid the roar of
trams and the glare of arc lamps, the buttresses of the cathedral of
Milan.

"Handkerchiefs and collars," screamed Harriet, "in my inlaid box! I've
lent you my inlaid box."

"Good old Harry!" She kissed every one again, and there was a moment's
silence. They all smiled steadily, excepting Philip, who was choking in
the fog, and old Mrs. Theobald, who had begun to cry. Miss Abbott got
into the carriage. The guard himself shut the door, and told Lilia that
she would be all right. Then the train moved, and they all moved with it
a couple of steps, and waved their handkerchiefs, and uttered cheerful
little cries. At that moment Mr. Kingcroft reappeared, carrying a
footwarmer by both ends, as if it was a tea-tray. He was sorry that
he was too late, and called out in a quivering voice, "Good-bye, Mrs.
Charles. May you enjoy yourself, and may God bless you."

Lilia smiled and nodded, and then the absurd position of the foot-warmer
overcame her, and she began to laugh again.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she cried back, "but you do look so funny. Oh, you
all look so funny waving! Oh, pray!" And laughing helplessly, she was
carried out into the fog.

"High spirits to begin so long a journey," said Mrs. Theobald, dabbing
her eyes.

Mr. Kingcroft solemnly moved his head in token of agreement. "I wish,"
said he, "that Mrs. Charles had gotten the footwarmer. These London
porters won't take heed to a country chap."

"But you did your best," said Mrs. Herriton. "And I think it simply
noble of you to have brought Mrs. Theobald all the way here on such a
day as this." Then, rather hastily, she shook hands, and left him to
take Mrs. Theobald all the way back.

Sawston, her own home, was within easy reach of London, and they were
not late for tea. Tea was in the dining-room, with an egg for Irma, to
keep up the child's spirits. The house seemed strangely quiet after a
fortnight's bustle, and their conversation was spasmodic and subdued.
They wondered whether the travellers had got to Folkestone, whether it
would be at all rough, and if so what would happen to poor Miss Abbott.

"And, Granny, when will the old ship get to Italy?" asked Irma.

"'Grandmother,' dear; not 'Granny,'" said Mrs. Herriton, giving her
a kiss. "And we say 'a boat' or 'a steamer,' not 'a ship.' Ships have
sails. And mother won't go all the way by sea. You look at the map of
Europe, and you'll see why. Harriet, take her. Go with Aunt Harriet, and
she'll show you the map."

"Righto!" said the little girl, and dragged the reluctant Harriet
into the library. Mrs. Herriton and her son were left alone. There was
immediately confidence between them.

"Here beginneth the New Life," said Philip.

"Poor child, how vulgar!" murmured Mrs. Herriton. "It's surprising that
she isn't worse. But she has got a look of poor Charles about her."

"And--alas, alas!--a look of old Mrs. Theobald. What appalling
apparition was that! I did think the lady was bedridden as well as
imbecile. Why ever did she come?"

"Mr. Kingcroft made her. I am certain of it. He wanted to see Lilia
again, and this was the only way."

"I hope he is satisfied. I did not think my sister-in-law distinguished
herself in her farewells."

Mrs. Herriton shuddered. "I mind nothing, so long as she has gone--and
gone with Miss Abbott. It is mortifying to think that a widow of
thirty-three requires a girl ten years younger to look after her."

"I pity Miss Abbott. Fortunately one admirer is chained to England. Mr.
Kingcroft cannot leave the crops or the climate or something. I don't
think, either, he improved his chances today. He, as well as Lilia, has
the knack of being absurd in public."

Mrs. Herriton replied, "When a man is neither well bred, nor well
connected, nor handsome, nor clever, nor rich, even Lilia may discard
him in time."

"No. I believe she would take any one. Right up to the last, when her
boxes were packed, she was 'playing' the chinless curate. Both the
curates are chinless, but hers had the dampest hands. I came on them in
the Park. They were speaking of the Pentateuch."

"My dear boy! If possible, she has got worse and worse. It was your idea
of Italian travel that saved us!"

Philip brightened at the little compliment. "The odd part is that she
was quite eager--always asking me for information; and of course I was
very glad to give it. I admit she is a Philistine, appallingly ignorant,
and her taste in art is false. Still, to have any taste at all is
something. And I do believe that Italy really purifies and ennobles all
who visit her. She is the school as well as the playground of the world.
It is really to Lilia's credit that she wants to go there."

"She would go anywhere," said his mother, who had heard enough of the
praises of Italy. "I and Caroline Abbott had the greatest difficulty in
dissuading her from the Riviera."

"No, Mother; no. She was really keen on Italy. This travel is quite a
crisis for her." He found the situation full of whimsical romance: there
was something half attractive, half repellent in the thought of this
vulgar woman journeying to places he loved and revered. Why should she
not be transfigured? The same had happened to the Goths.

Mrs. Herriton did not believe in romance nor in transfiguration, nor in
parallels from history, nor in anything else that may disturb domestic
life. She adroitly changed the subject before Philip got excited. Soon
Harriet returned, having given her lesson in geography. Irma went to bed
early, and was tucked up by her grandmother. Then the two ladies worked
and played cards. Philip read a book. And so they all settled down to
their quiet, profitable existence, and continued it without interruption
through the winter.

It was now nearly ten years since Charles had fallen in love with Lilia
Theobald because she was pretty, and during that time Mrs. Herriton had
hardly known a moment's rest. For six months she schemed to prevent
the match, and when it had taken place she turned to another task--the
supervision of her daughter-in-law. Lilia must be pushed through life
without bringing discredit on the family into which she had married. She
was aided by Charles, by her daughter Harriet, and, as soon as he was
old enough, by the clever one of the family, Philip. The birth of Irma
made things still more difficult. But fortunately old Mrs. Theobald, who
had attempted interference, began to break up. It was an effort to her
to leave Whitby, and Mrs. Herriton discouraged the effort as far as
possible. That curious duel which is fought over every baby was fought
and decided early. Irma belonged to her father's family, not to her
mother's.

Charles died, and the struggle recommenced. Lilia tried to assert
herself, and said that she should go to take care of Mrs. Theobald.
It required all Mrs. Herriton's kindness to prevent her. A house was
finally taken for her at Sawston, and there for three years she lived
with Irma, continually subject to the refining influences of her late
husband's family.

During one of her rare Yorkshire visits trouble began again. Lilia
confided to a friend that she liked a Mr. Kingcroft extremely, but
that she was not exactly engaged to him. The news came round to Mrs.
Herriton, who at once wrote, begging for information, and pointing out
that Lilia must either be engaged or not, since no intermediate state
existed. It was a good letter, and flurried Lilia extremely. She left
Mr. Kingcroft without even the pressure of a rescue-party. She cried a
great deal on her return to Sawston, and said she was very sorry. Mrs.
Herriton took the opportunity of speaking more seriously about the
duties of widowhood and motherhood than she had ever done before. But
somehow things never went easily after. Lilia would not settle down in
her place among Sawston matrons. She was a bad housekeeper, always in
the throes of some domestic crisis, which Mrs. Herriton, who kept her
servants for years, had to step across and adjust. She let Irma stop
away from school for insufficient reasons, and she allowed her to wear
rings. She learnt to bicycle, for the purpose of waking the place up,
and coasted down the High Street one Sunday evening, falling off at the
turn by the church. If she had not been a relative, it would have been
entertaining. But even Philip, who in theory loved outraging English
conventions, rose to the occasion, and gave her a talking which she
remembered to her dying day. It was just then, too, that they discovered
that she still allowed Mr. Kingcroft to write to her "as a gentleman
friend," and to send presents to Irma.

Philip thought of Italy, and the situation was saved. Caroline,
charming, sober, Caroline Abbott, who lived two turnings away, was
seeking a companion for a year's travel. Lilia gave up her house, sold
half her furniture, left the other half and Irma with Mrs. Herriton, and
had now departed, amid universal approval, for a change of scene.

She wrote to them frequently during the winter--more frequently than she
wrote to her mother. Her letters were always prosperous. Florence she
found perfectly sweet, Naples a dream, but very whiffy. In Rome one had
simply to sit still and feel. Philip, however, declared that she was
improving. He was particularly gratified when in the early spring she
began to visit the smaller towns that he had recommended. "In a place
like this," she wrote, "one really does feel in the heart of things, and
off the beaten track. Looking out of a Gothic window every morning, it
seems impossible that the middle ages have passed away." The letter was
from Monteriano, and concluded with a not unsuccessful description of
the wonderful little town.

"It is something that she is contented," said Mrs. Herriton. "But no one
could live three months with Caroline Abbott and not be the better for
it."

Just then Irma came in from school, and she read her mother's letter to
her, carefully correcting any grammatical errors, for she was a loyal
supporter of parental authority--Irma listened politely, but soon
changed the subject to hockey, in which her whole being was absorbed.
They were to vote for colours that afternoon--yellow and white or yellow
and green. What did her grandmother think?

Of course Mrs. Herriton had an opinion, which she sedately expounded, in
spite of Harriet, who said that colours were unnecessary for children,
and of Philip, who said that they were ugly. She was getting proud of
Irma, who had certainly greatly improved, and could no longer be called
that most appalling of things--a vulgar child. She was anxious to form
her before her mother returned. So she had no objection to the leisurely
movements of the travellers, and even suggested that they should
overstay their year if it suited them.

Lilia's next letter was also from Monteriano, and Philip grew quite
enthusiastic.

"They've stopped there over a week!" he cried. "Why! I shouldn't have
done as much myself. They must be really keen, for the hotel's none too
comfortable."

"I cannot understand people," said Harriet. "What can they be doing all
day? And there is no church there, I suppose."

"There is Santa Deodata, one of the most beautiful churches in Italy."

"Of course I mean an English church," said Harriet stiffly. "Lilia
promised me that she would always be in a large town on Sundays."

"If she goes to a service at Santa Deodata's, she will find more beauty
and sincerity than there is in all the Back Kitchens of Europe."

The Back Kitchen was his nickname for St. James's, a small depressing
edifice much patronized by his sister. She always resented any slight on
it, and Mrs. Herriton had to intervene.

"Now, dears, don't. Listen to Lilia's letter. 'We love this place, and
I do not know how I shall ever thank Philip for telling me it. It is
not only so quaint, but one sees the Italians unspoiled in all their
simplicity and charm here. The frescoes are wonderful. Caroline, who
grows sweeter every day, is very busy sketching.'"

"Every one to his taste!" said Harriet, who always delivered a platitude
as if it was an epigram. She was curiously virulent about Italy, which
she had never visited, her only experience of the Continent being an
occasional six weeks in the Protestant parts of Switzerland.

"Oh, Harriet is a bad lot!" said Philip as soon as she left the room.
His mother laughed, and told him not to be naughty; and the appearance
of Irma, just off to school, prevented further discussion. Not only in
Tracts is a child a peacemaker.

"One moment, Irma," said her uncle. "I'm going to the station. I'll give
you the pleasure of my company."

They started together. Irma was gratified; but conversation flagged,
for Philip had not the art of talking to the young. Mrs. Herriton sat
a little longer at the breakfast table, re-reading Lilia's letter. Then
she helped the cook to clear, ordered dinner, and started the housemaid
turning out the drawing-room, Tuesday being its day. The weather was
lovely, and she thought she would do a little gardening, as it was quite
early. She called Harriet, who had recovered from the insult to St.
James's, and together they went to the kitchen garden and began to sow
some early vegetables.

"We will save the peas to the last; they are the greatest fun," said
Mrs. Herriton, who had the gift of making work a treat. She and her
elderly daughter always got on very well, though they had not a great
deal in common. Harriet's education had been almost too successful. As
Philip once said, she had "bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn't
digest them." Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for
the house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much
valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if she had
been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was
worse, she would have done the same to Philip two years before, when he
returned full of passion for Italy, and ridiculing Sawston and its ways.

"It's a shame, Mother!" she had cried. "Philip laughs at everything--the
Book Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive Whist, the bazaars.
People won't like it. We have our reputation. A house divided against
itself cannot stand."

Mrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, "Let Philip say what he
likes, and he will let us do what we like." And Harriet had acquiesced.

They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of
righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the
peas. Harriet stretched a string to guide the row straight, and Mrs.
Herriton scratched a furrow with a pointed stick. At the end of it she
looked at her watch.

"It's twelve! The second post's in. Run and see if there are any
letters."

Harriet did not want to go. "Let's finish the peas. There won't be any
letters."

"No, dear; please go. I'll sow the peas, but you shall cover them
up--and mind the birds don't see 'em!"

Mrs. Herriton was very careful to let those peas trickle evenly from
her hand, and at the end of the row she was conscious that she had never
sown better. They were expensive too.

"Actually old Mrs. Theobald!" said Harriet, returning.

"Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable the crested
paper is."

Harriet opened the envelope.

"I don't understand," she said; "it doesn't make sense."

"Her letters never did."

"But it must be sillier than usual," said Harriet, and her voice began
to quaver. "Look here, read it, Mother; I can't make head or tail."

Mrs. Herriton took the letter indulgently. "What is the difficulty?" she
said after a long pause. "What is it that puzzles you in this letter?"

"The meaning--" faltered Harriet. The sparrows hopped nearer and began
to eye the peas.

"The meaning is quite clear--Lilia is engaged to be married. Don't cry,
dear; please me by not crying--don't talk at all. It's more than I could
bear. She is going to marry some one she has met in a hotel. Take the
letter and read for yourself." Suddenly she broke down over what might
seem a small point. "How dare she not tell me direct! How dare she
write first to Yorkshire! Pray, am I to hear through Mrs. Theobald--a
patronizing, insolent letter like this? Have I no claim at all? Bear
witness, dear"--she choked with passion--"bear witness that for this
I'll never forgive her!"

"Oh, what is to be done?" moaned Harriet. "What is to be done?"

"This first!" She tore the letter into little pieces and scattered it
over the mould. "Next, a telegram for Lilia! No! a telegram for Miss
Caroline Abbott. She, too, has something to explain."

"Oh, what is to be done?" repeated Harriet, as she followed her mother
to the house. She was helpless before such effrontery. What awful
thing--what awful person had come to Lilia? "Some one in the hotel." The
letter only said that. What kind of person? A gentleman? An Englishman?
The letter did not say.

"Wire reason of stay at Monteriano. Strange rumours," read Mrs.
Herriton, and addressed the telegram to Abbott, Stella d'Italia,
Monteriano, Italy. "If there is an office there," she added, "we might
get an answer this evening. Since Philip is back at seven, and the
eight-fifteen catches the midnight boat at Dover--Harriet, when you go
with this, get 100 pounds in 5 pound notes at the bank."

"Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back; go quickly....
Well, Irma dear, and whose team are you in this afternoon--Miss Edith's
or Miss May's?"

But as soon as she had behaved as usual to her grand-daughter, she went
to the library and took out the large atlas, for she wanted to know
about Monteriano. The name was in the smallest print, in the midst of a
woolly-brown tangle of hills which were called the "Sub-Apennines." It
was not so very far from Siena, which she had learnt at school. Past it
there wandered a thin black line, notched at intervals like a saw,
and she knew that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal to
imagination, and she had not got any. She looked up the place in "Childe
Harold," but Byron had not been there. Nor did Mark Twain visit it in
the "Tramp Abroad." The resources of literature were exhausted: she
must wait till Philip came home. And the thought of Philip made her try
Philip's room, and there she found "Central Italy," by Baedeker, and
opened it for the first time in her life and read in it as follows:--

MONTERIANO (pop. 4800). Hotels: Stella d'Italia, moderate only; Globo,
dirty. * Caffe Garibaldi. Post and Telegraph office in Corso Vittorio
Emmanuele, next to theatre. Photographs at Seghena's (cheaper in
Florence). Diligence (1 lira) meets principal trains.

Chief attractions (2-3 hours): Santa Deodata, Palazzo Pubblico, Sant'
Agostino, Santa Caterina, Sant' Ambrogio, Palazzo Capocchi. Guide
(2 lire) unnecessary. A walk round the Walls should on no account be
omitted. The view from the Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset.

History: Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, whose Ghibelline
tendencies are noted by Dante (Purg. xx.), definitely emancipated itself
from Poggibonsi in 1261. Hence the distich, "POGGIBONIZZI, FAUI IN LA,
CHE MONTERIANO SI FA CITTA!" till recently enscribed over the Siena
gate. It remained independent till 1530, when it was sacked by the Papal
troops and became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It is now of small
importance, and seat of the district prison. The inhabitants are still
noted for their agreeable manners.

                    *****

The traveller will proceed direct from the Siena gate to the Collegiate
Church of Santa Deodata, and inspect (5th chapel on right) the charming
Frescoes....

Mrs. Herriton did not proceed. She was not one to detect the hidden
charms of Baedeker. Some of the information seemed to her unnecessary,
all of it was dull. Whereas Philip could never read "The view from the
Rocca (small gratuity) is finest at sunset" without a catching at the
heart. Restoring the book to its place, she went downstairs, and looked
up and down the asphalt paths for her daughter. She saw her at last,
two turnings away, vainly trying to shake off Mr. Abbott, Miss Caroline
Abbott's father. Harriet was always unfortunate. At last she returned,
hot, agitated, crackling with bank-notes, and Irma bounced to greet her,
and trod heavily on her corn.

"Your feet grow larger every day," said the agonized Harriet, and gave
her niece a violent push. Then Irma cried, and Mrs. Herriton was annoyed
with Harriet for betraying irritation. Lunch was nasty; and during
pudding news arrived that the cook, by sheer dexterity, had broken
a very vital knob off the kitchen-range. "It is too bad," said Mrs.
Herriton. Irma said it was three bad, and was told not to be rude. After
lunch Harriet would get out Baedeker, and read in injured tones about
Monteriano, the Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped her.

"It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to marry any one in the
place. Some tourist, obviously, who's stopping in the hotel. The place
has nothing to do with it at all."

"But what a place to go to! What nice person, too, do you meet in a
hotel?"

"Nice or nasty, as I have told you several times before, is not the
point. Lilia has insulted our family, and she shall suffer for it. And
when you speak against hotels, I think you forget that I met your father
at Chamounix. You can contribute nothing, dear, at present, and I think
you had better hold your tongue. I am going to the kitchen, to speak
about the range."

She spoke just too much, and the cook said that if she could not give
satisfaction--she had better leave. A small thing at hand is greater
than a great thing remote, and Lilia, misconducting herself upon a
mountain in Central Italy, was immediately hidden. Mrs. Herriton flew to
a registry office, failed; flew to another, failed again; came home,
was told by the housemaid that things seemed so unsettled that she had
better leave as well; had tea, wrote six letters, was interrupted by
cook and housemaid, both weeping, asking her pardon, and imploring to
be taken back. In the flush of victory the door-bell rang, and there was
the telegram: "Lilia engaged to Italian nobility. Writing. Abbott."

"No answer," said Mrs. Herriton. "Get down Mr. Philip's Gladstone from
the attic."

She would not allow herself to be frightened by the unknown. Indeed
she knew a little now. The man was not an Italian noble, otherwise the
telegram would have said so. It must have been written by Lilia. None
but she would have been guilty of the fatuous vulgarity of "Italian
nobility." She recalled phrases of this morning's letter: "We love this
place--Caroline is sweeter than ever, and busy sketching--Italians full
of simplicity and charm." And the remark of Baedeker, "The inhabitants
are still noted for their agreeable manners," had a baleful meaning now.
If Mrs. Herriton had no imagination, she had intuition, a more useful
quality, and the picture she made to herself of Lilia's FIANCE did not
prove altogether wrong.

So Philip was received with the news that he must start in half an hour
for Monteriano. He was in a painful position. For three years he had
sung the praises of the Italians, but he had never contemplated having
one as a relative. He tried to soften the thing down to his mother, but
in his heart of hearts he agreed with her when she said, "The man may
be a duke or he may be an organ-grinder. That is not the point. If Lilia
marries him she insults the memory of Charles, she insults Irma, she
insults us. Therefore I forbid her, and if she disobeys we have done
with her for ever."

"I will do all I can," said Philip in a low voice. It was the first time
he had had anything to do. He kissed his mother and sister and puzzled
Irma. The hall was warm and attractive as he looked back into it from
the cold March night, and he departed for Italy reluctantly, as for
something commonplace and dull.

Before Mrs. Herriton went to bed she wrote to Mrs. Theobald, using plain
language about Lilia's conduct, and hinting that it was a question on
which every one must definitely choose sides. She added, as if it was an
afterthought, that Mrs. Theobald's letter had arrived that morning.

Just as she was going upstairs she remembered that she never covered
up those peas. It upset her more than anything, and again and again she
struck the banisters with vexation. Late as it was, she got a lantern
from the tool-shed and went down the garden to rake the earth over them.
The sparrows had taken every one. But countless fragments of the letter
remained, disfiguring the tidy ground.

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

completion: Lilia Herriton, a widow of several years, has been living with her in-laws, the Herritons, since her husband Charles' death. At Charing Cross station, everyone is gathered to wish Lilia a bon voyage to Italy. Snobbish Philip Herriton, his dour sister Harriet, precocious little Irma , disapproving Mrs. Herriton, and meek Mrs. Theobold accompanied by Mr. Kingcroft, are all speaking at once, trying to give Lilia last minute advice. Lilia's trip to Italy had been Philip's idea--a desperate attempt by the Herritons to put a stop to Lilia's flirtations with Mr. Kingcroft, who Mrs. Herriton considers an unsuitable match for her daughter-in-law. He probably wears white shoes after Labor Day, or eats his salad with his dinner fork. Luckily for the Herritons, Caroline Abbott, a woman ten years younger than Lilia but way more levelheaded, was looking for a travel buddy . Arrangements were quickly made, and now Lilia is all packed up and ready for an extended stay in Italy with Miss Abbott as her travel companion . Philip, who has traveled to Italy a bunch of times and thinks he's the expert on the country, reminds Lilia to go off the beaten track to really experience Italy at its best. As Lilia boards the train with Caroline, Harriet calls out that there are handkerchiefs in the inlaid box she has lent Lilia for the trip. Symbol alert: watch this inlaid box. Returning home to Sawston, the Herritons have afternoon tea and share their relief over Lilia's departure. Philip is quite pleased with himself for coming up with the idea of sending Lilia off to Italy. He even thinks that the beauty and culture of Italy will cure Lilia of being a Philistine . Now for some quick character background on Lilia. The narrator now fills us in on the details leading up to Lilia's trip to Italy: 1) A dude named Charles fell in love with Lilia almost ten years ago. Mrs. Herriton does everything in her power to prevent the marriage, but being unable to come between the couple, she switches tactics to supervising Lilia's each and every move; 2) After Lilia gives birth to Irma, Mrs. Herriton takes charge of training Irma to behave properly; 3) When Charles dies , Lilia tries to assert herself, but Mrs. Herriton puts constant pressure on her to perform the duties of widowhood; 4) Lilia forms a flirtatious friendship with Mr. Kingcroft, and as a result, is promptly shipped off to Italy before she risks ruining the Herriton's precious reputation. Recipe for unhappiness for poor Lilia? We think so, yup. Ok, back to the present time. The winter passes quietly and Lilia's tour of Italy seems to be a success. Lilia is becoming quite the sophisticated traveler, and back in Sawston, Irma's manners are improving under the guidance of Mrs. Herriton. She's probably picking up some handy-dandy Edwardian skills like the ability to wear a big hat without toppling over. But hang onto your hat because things are about to get real bumpy. Mrs. Herriton receives a letter from Mrs. Theobold saying that Lilia is engaged to "someone at the hotel." Clearly, this is not at all what Mrs. Herriton had planned for. She had only just broken up Lilia and Mr. Kingcroft, and now this. Smelling salts, please! Fearing the worst, Mrs. Herriton rushes off to send a telegram to Caroline. Miss Abbott has some serious explaining to do. When a telegram from Caroline finally arrives, Mrs. Herriton learns to her dismay that Lilia is engaged to "Italian nobility." Mrs. Herriton senses that this must be a lie, and in a last ditch attempt to prevent scandal, she insists that Philip go at once to Italy to bring Lilia home before she goes through with the marriage.


prompt:
Chapter: When the bewildered tourist alights at the station of Monteriano, he
finds himself in the middle of the country. There are a few houses round
the railway, and many more dotted over the plain and the slopes of the
hills, but of a town, mediaeval or otherwise, not the slightest sign. He
must take what is suitably termed a "legno"--a piece of wood--and
drive up eight miles of excellent road into the middle ages. For it is
impossible, as well as sacrilegious, to be as quick as Baedeker.

It was three in the afternoon when Philip left the realms of
commonsense. He was so weary with travelling that he had fallen asleep
in the train. His fellow-passengers had the usual Italian gift of
divination, and when Monteriano came they knew he wanted to go there,
and dropped him out. His feet sank into the hot asphalt of the platform,
and in a dream he watched the train depart, while the porter who ought
to have been carrying his bag, ran up the line playing touch-you-last
with the guard. Alas! he was in no humour for Italy. Bargaining for a
legno bored him unutterably. The man asked six lire; and though Philip
knew that for eight miles it should scarcely be more than four, yet he
was about to give what he was asked, and so make the man discontented
and unhappy for the rest of the day. He was saved from this social
blunder by loud shouts, and looking up the road saw one cracking his
whip and waving his reins and driving two horses furiously, and behind
him there appeared the swaying figure of a woman, holding star-fish
fashion on to anything she could touch. It was Miss Abbott, who had just
received his letter from Milan announcing the time of his arrival, and
had hurried down to meet him.

He had known Miss Abbott for years, and had never had much opinion about
her one way or the other. She was good, quiet, dull, and amiable,
and young only because she was twenty-three: there was nothing in her
appearance or manner to suggest the fire of youth. All her life had
been spent at Sawston with a dull and amiable father, and her pleasant,
pallid face, bent on some respectable charity, was a familiar object
of the Sawston streets. Why she had ever wished to leave them was
surprising; but as she truly said, "I am John Bull to the backbone, yet
I do want to see Italy, just once. Everybody says it is marvellous, and
that one gets no idea of it from books at all." The curate suggested
that a year was a long time; and Miss Abbott, with decorous playfulness,
answered him, "Oh, but you must let me have my fling! I promise to have
it once, and once only. It will give me things to think about and talk
about for the rest of my life." The curate had consented; so had Mr.
Abbott. And here she was in a legno, solitary, dusty, frightened, with
as much to answer and to answer for as the most dashing adventuress
could desire.

They shook hands without speaking. She made room for Philip and his
luggage amidst the loud indignation of the unsuccessful driver, whom it
required the combined eloquence of the station-master and the station
beggar to confute. The silence was prolonged until they started. For
three days he had been considering what he should do, and still more
what he should say. He had invented a dozen imaginary conversations, in
all of which his logic and eloquence procured him certain victory. But
how to begin? He was in the enemy's country, and everything--the hot
sun, the cold air behind the heat, the endless rows of olive-trees,
regular yet mysterious--seemed hostile to the placid atmosphere of
Sawston in which his thoughts took birth. At the outset he made one
great concession. If the match was really suitable, and Lilia were bent
on it, he would give in, and trust to his influence with his mother to
set things right. He would not have made the concession in England;
but here in Italy, Lilia, however wilful and silly, was at all events
growing to be a human being.

"Are we to talk it over now?" he asked.

"Certainly, please," said Miss Abbott, in great agitation. "If you will
be so very kind."

"Then how long has she been engaged?"

Her face was that of a perfect fool--a fool in terror.

"A short time--quite a short time," she stammered, as if the shortness
of the time would reassure him.

"I should like to know how long, if you can remember."

She entered into elaborate calculations on her fingers. "Exactly eleven
days," she said at last.

"How long have you been here?"

More calculations, while he tapped irritably with his foot. "Close on
three weeks."

"Did you know him before you came?"

"No."

"Oh! Who is he?"

"A native of the place."

The second silence took place. They had left the plain now and
were climbing up the outposts of the hills, the olive-trees still
accompanying. The driver, a jolly fat man, had got out to ease the
horses, and was walking by the side of the carriage.

"I understood they met at the hotel."

"It was a mistake of Mrs. Theobald's."

"I also understand that he is a member of the Italian nobility."

She did not reply.

"May I be told his name?"

Miss Abbott whispered, "Carella." But the driver heard her, and a grin
split over his face. The engagement must be known already.

"Carella? Conte or Marchese, or what?"

"Signor," said Miss Abbott, and looked helplessly aside.

"Perhaps I bore you with these questions. If so, I will stop."

"Oh, no, please; not at all. I am here--my own idea--to give all
information which you very naturally--and to see if somehow--please ask
anything you like."

"Then how old is he?"

"Oh, quite young. Twenty-one, I believe."

There burst from Philip the exclamation, "Good Lord!"

"One would never believe it," said Miss Abbott, flushing. "He looks much
older."

"And is he good-looking?" he asked, with gathering sarcasm.

She became decisive. "Very good-looking. All his features are good, and
he is well built--though I dare say English standards would find him too
short."

Philip, whose one physical advantage was his height, felt annoyed at her
implied indifference to it.

"May I conclude that you like him?"

She replied decisively again, "As far as I have seen him, I do."

At that moment the carriage entered a little wood, which lay brown and
sombre across the cultivated hill. The trees of the wood were small and
leafless, but noticeable for this--that their stems stood in violets as
rocks stand in the summer sea. There are such violets in England,
but not so many. Nor are there so many in Art, for no painter has the
courage. The cart-ruts were channels, the hollow lagoons; even the
dry white margin of the road was splashed, like a causeway soon to be
submerged under the advancing tide of spring. Philip paid no attention
at the time: he was thinking what to say next. But his eyes had
registered the beauty, and next March he did not forget that the road to
Monteriano must traverse innumerable flowers.

"As far as I have seen him, I do like him," repeated Miss Abbott, after
a pause.

He thought she sounded a little defiant, and crushed her at once.

"What is he, please? You haven't told me that. What's his position?"

She opened her mouth to speak, and no sound came from it. Philip waited
patiently. She tried to be audacious, and failed pitiably.

"No position at all. He is kicking his heels, as my father would say.
You see, he has only just finished his military service."

"As a private?"

"I suppose so. There is general conscription. He was in the Bersaglieri,
I think. Isn't that the crack regiment?"

"The men in it must be short and broad. They must also be able to walk
six miles an hour."

She looked at him wildly, not understanding all that he said, but
feeling that he was very clever. Then she continued her defence of
Signor Carella.

"And now, like most young men, he is looking out for something to do."

"Meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile, like most young men, he lives with his people--father,
mother, two sisters, and a tiny tot of a brother."

There was a grating sprightliness about her that drove him nearly mad.
He determined to silence her at last.

"One more question, and only one more. What is his father?"

"His father," said Miss Abbott. "Well, I don't suppose you'll think it
a good match. But that's not the point. I mean the point is not--I mean
that social differences--love, after all--not but what--I--"

Philip ground his teeth together and said nothing.

"Gentlemen sometimes judge hardly. But I feel that you, and at
all events your mother--so really good in every sense, so really
unworldly--after all, love-marriages are made in heaven."

"Yes, Miss Abbott, I know. But I am anxious to hear heaven's choice. You
arouse my curiosity. Is my sister-in-law to marry an angel?"

"Mr. Herriton, don't--please, Mr. Herriton--a dentist. His father's a
dentist."

Philip gave a cry of personal disgust and pain. He shuddered all over,
and edged away from his companion. A dentist! A dentist at Monteriano. A
dentist in fairyland! False teeth and laughing gas and the tilting
chair at a place which knew the Etruscan League, and the Pax Romana,
and Alaric himself, and the Countess Matilda, and the Middle Ages, all
fighting and holiness, and the Renaissance, all fighting and beauty! He
thought of Lilia no longer. He was anxious for himself: he feared that
Romance might die.

Romance only dies with life. No pair of pincers will ever pull it out of
us. But there is a spurious sentiment which cannot resist the unexpected
and the incongruous and the grotesque. A touch will loosen it, and the
sooner it goes from us the better. It was going from Philip now, and
therefore he gave the cry of pain.

"I cannot think what is in the air," he began. "If Lilia was determined
to disgrace us, she might have found a less repulsive way. A boy of
medium height with a pretty face, the son of a dentist at Monteriano.
Have I put it correctly? May I surmise that he has not got one penny?
May I also surmise that his social position is nil? Furthermore--"

"Stop! I'll tell you no more."

"Really, Miss Abbott, it is a little late for reticence. You have
equipped me admirably!"

"I'll tell you not another word!" she cried, with a spasm of terror.
Then she got out her handkerchief, and seemed as if she would shed
tears. After a silence, which he intended to symbolize to her the
dropping of a curtain on the scene, he began to talk of other subjects.

They were among olives again, and the wood with its beauty and wildness
had passed away. But as they climbed higher the country opened out, and
there appeared, high on a hill to the right, Monteriano. The hazy green
of the olives rose up to its walls, and it seemed to float in isolation
between trees and sky, like some fantastic ship city of a dream. Its
colour was brown, and it revealed not a single house--nothing but the
narrow circle of the walls, and behind them seventeen towers--all that
was left of the fifty-two that had filled the city in her prime. Some
were only stumps, some were inclining stiffly to their fall, some were
still erect, piercing like masts into the blue. It was impossible to
praise it as beautiful, but it was also impossible to damn it as quaint.

Meanwhile Philip talked continually, thinking this to be great evidence
of resource and tact. It showed Miss Abbott that he had probed her to
the bottom, but was able to conquer his disgust, and by sheer force of
intellect continue to be as agreeable and amusing as ever. He did not
know that he talked a good deal of nonsense, and that the sheer force
of his intellect was weakened by the sight of Monteriano, and by the
thought of dentistry within those walls.

The town above them swung to the left, to the right, to the left again,
as the road wound upward through the trees, and the towers began to glow
in the descending sun. As they drew near, Philip saw the heads of people
gathering black upon the walls, and he knew well what was happening--how
the news was spreading that a stranger was in sight, and the beggars
were aroused from their content and bid to adjust their deformities; how
the alabaster man was running for his wares, and the Authorized Guide
running for his peaked cap and his two cards of recommendation--one from
Miss M'Gee, Maida Vale, the other, less valuable, from an Equerry to the
Queen of Peru; how some one else was running to tell the landlady of the
Stella d'Italia to put on her pearl necklace and brown boots and empty
the slops from the spare bedroom; and how the landlady was running to
tell Lilia and her boy that their fate was at hand.

Perhaps it was a pity Philip had talked so profusely. He had driven
Miss Abbott half demented, but he had given himself no time to concert
a plan. The end came so suddenly. They emerged from the trees on to the
terrace before the walk, with the vision of half Tuscany radiant in the
sun behind them, and then they turned in through the Siena gate, and
their journey was over. The Dogana men admitted them with an air of
gracious welcome, and they clattered up the narrow dark street, greeted
by that mixture of curiosity and kindness which makes each Italian
arrival so wonderful.

He was stunned and knew not what to do. At the hotel he received no
ordinary reception. The landlady wrung him by the hand; one person
snatched his umbrella, another his bag; people pushed each other out of
his way. The entrance seemed blocked with a crowd. Dogs were barking,
bladder whistles being blown, women waving their handkerchiefs, excited
children screaming on the stairs, and at the top of the stairs was Lilia
herself, very radiant, with her best blouse on.

"Welcome!" she cried. "Welcome to Monteriano!" He greeted her, for he
did not know what else to do, and a sympathetic murmur rose from the
crowd below.

"You told me to come here," she continued, "and I don't forget it. Let
me introduce Signor Carella!"

Philip discerned in the corner behind her a young man who might
eventually prove handsome and well-made, but certainly did not seem so
then. He was half enveloped in the drapery of a cold dirty curtain, and
nervously stuck out a hand, which Philip took and found thick and damp.
There were more murmurs of approval from the stairs.

"Well, din-din's nearly ready," said Lilia. "Your room's down the
passage, Philip. You needn't go changing."

He stumbled away to wash his hands, utterly crushed by her effrontery.

"Dear Caroline!" whispered Lilia as soon as he had gone. "What an angel
you've been to tell him! He takes it so well. But you must have had a
MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE."

Miss Abbott's long terror suddenly turned into acidity. "I've told
nothing," she snapped. "It's all for you--and if it only takes a quarter
of an hour you'll be lucky!"

Dinner was a nightmare. They had the smelly dining-room to themselves.
Lilia, very smart and vociferous, was at the head of the table; Miss
Abbott, also in her best, sat by Philip, looking, to his irritated
nerves, more like the tragedy confidante every moment. That scion of the
Italian nobility, Signor Carella, sat opposite. Behind him loomed a bowl
of goldfish, who swam round and round, gaping at the guests.

The face of Signor Carella was twitching too much for Philip to study
it. But he could see the hands, which were not particularly clean, and
did not get cleaner by fidgeting amongst the shining slabs of hair.
His starched cuffs were not clean either, and as for his suit, it had
obviously been bought for the occasion as something really English--a
gigantic check, which did not even fit. His handkerchief he had
forgotten, but never missed it. Altogether, he was quite unpresentable,
and very lucky to have a father who was a dentist in Monteriano. And
why, even Lilia--But as soon as the meal began it furnished Philip with
an explanation.

For the youth was hungry, and his lady filled his plate with spaghetti,
and when those delicious slippery worms were flying down his throat, his
face relaxed and became for a moment unconscious and calm. And Philip
had seen that face before in Italy a hundred times--seen it and loved
it, for it was not merely beautiful, but had the charm which is the
rightful heritage of all who are born on that soil. But he did not want
to see it opposite him at dinner. It was not the face of a gentleman.

Conversation, to give it that name, was carried on in a mixture of
English and Italian. Lilia had picked up hardly any of the latter
language, and Signor Carella had not yet learnt any of the former.
Occasionally Miss Abbott had to act as interpreter between the lovers,
and the situation became uncouth and revolting in the extreme. Yet
Philip was too cowardly to break forth and denounce the engagement. He
thought he should be more effective with Lilia if he had her alone,
and pretended to himself that he must hear her defence before giving
judgment.

Signor Carella, heartened by the spaghetti and the throat-rasping wine,
attempted to talk, and, looking politely towards Philip, said, "England
is a great country. The Italians love England and the English."

Philip, in no mood for international amenities, merely bowed.

"Italy too," the other continued a little resentfully, "is a great
country. She has produced many famous men--for example Garibaldi and
Dante. The latter wrote the 'Inferno,' the 'Purgatorio,' the 'Paradiso.'
The 'Inferno' is the most beautiful." And with the complacent tone of
one who has received a solid education, he quoted the opening lines--

  Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
  Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
  Che la diritta via era smarrita--

a quotation which was more apt than he supposed.

Lilia glanced at Philip to see whether he noticed that she was
marrying no ignoramus. Anxious to exhibit all the good qualities of her
betrothed, she abruptly introduced the subject of pallone, in which,
it appeared, he was a proficient player. He suddenly became shy and
developed a conceited grin--the grin of the village yokel whose cricket
score is mentioned before a stranger. Philip himself had loved to watch
pallone, that entrancing combination of lawn-tennis and fives. But he
did not expect to love it quite so much again.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Lilia, "the poor wee fish!"

A starved cat had been worrying them all for pieces of the purple
quivering beef they were trying to swallow. Signor Carella, with the
brutality so common in Italians, had caught her by the paw and flung her
away from him. Now she had climbed up to the bowl and was trying to
hook out the fish. He got up, drove her off, and finding a large glass
stopper by the bowl, entirely plugged up the aperture with it.

"But may not the fish die?" said Miss Abbott. "They have no air."

"Fish live on water, not on air," he replied in a knowing voice, and sat
down. Apparently he was at his ease again, for he took to spitting on
the floor. Philip glanced at Lilia but did not detect her wincing. She
talked bravely till the end of the disgusting meal, and then got up
saying, "Well, Philip, I am sure you are ready for by-bye. We shall meet
at twelve o'clock lunch tomorrow, if we don't meet before. They give us
caffe later in our rooms."

It was a little too impudent. Philip replied, "I should like to see you
now, please, in my room, as I have come all the way on business." He
heard Miss Abbott gasp. Signor Carella, who was lighting a rank cigar,
had not understood.

It was as he expected. When he was alone with Lilia he lost all
nervousness. The remembrance of his long intellectual supremacy
strengthened him, and he began volubly--

"My dear Lilia, don't let's have a scene. Before I arrived I thought I
might have to question you. It is unnecessary. I know everything. Miss
Abbott has told me a certain amount, and the rest I see for myself."

"See for yourself?" she exclaimed, and he remembered afterwards that she
had flushed crimson.

"That he is probably a ruffian and certainly a cad."

"There are no cads in Italy," she said quickly.

He was taken aback. It was one of his own remarks. And she further upset
him by adding, "He is the son of a dentist. Why not?"

"Thank you for the information. I know everything, as I told you before.
I am also aware of the social position of an Italian who pulls teeth in
a minute provincial town."

He was not aware of it, but he ventured to conclude that it was pretty,
low. Nor did Lilia contradict him. But she was sharp enough to say,
"Indeed, Philip, you surprise me. I understood you went in for equality
and so on."

"And I understood that Signor Carella was a member of the Italian
nobility."

"Well, we put it like that in the telegram so as not to shock dear Mrs.
Herriton. But it is true. He is a younger branch. Of course families
ramify--just as in yours there is your cousin Joseph." She adroitly
picked out the only undesirable member of the Herriton clan. "Gino's
father is courtesy itself, and rising rapidly in his profession. This
very month he leaves Monteriano, and sets up at Poggibonsi. And for
my own poor part, I think what people are is what matters, but I don't
suppose you'll agree. And I should like you to know that Gino's uncle is
a priest--the same as a clergyman at home."

Philip was aware of the social position of an Italian priest, and said
so much about it that Lilia interrupted him with, "Well, his cousin's a
lawyer at Rome."

"What kind of 'lawyer'?"

"Why, a lawyer just like you are--except that he has lots to do and can
never get away."

The remark hurt more than he cared to show. He changed his method, and
in a gentle, conciliating tone delivered the following speech:--

"The whole thing is like a bad dream--so bad that it cannot go on. If
there was one redeeming feature about the man I might be uneasy. As it
is I can trust to time. For the moment, Lilia, he has taken you in,
but you will find him out soon. It is not possible that you, a lady,
accustomed to ladies and gentlemen, will tolerate a man whose position
is--well, not equal to the son of the servants' dentist in Coronation
Place. I am not blaming you now. But I blame the glamour of Italy--I
have felt it myself, you know--and I greatly blame Miss Abbott."

"Caroline! Why blame her? What's all this to do with Caroline?"

"Because we expected her to--" He saw that the answer would involve him
in difficulties, and, waving his hand, continued, "So I am confident,
and you in your heart agree, that this engagement will not last. Think
of your life at home--think of Irma! And I'll also say think of us; for
you know, Lilia, that we count you more than a relation. I should feel
I was losing my own sister if you did this, and my mother would lose a
daughter."

She seemed touched at last, for she turned away her face and said, "I
can't break it off now!"

"Poor Lilia," said he, genuinely moved. "I know it may be painful. But
I have come to rescue you, and, book-worm though I may be, I am not
frightened to stand up to a bully. He's merely an insolent boy. He
thinks he can keep you to your word by threats. He will be different
when he sees he has a man to deal with."

What follows should be prefaced with some simile--the simile of a
powder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake--for it blew Philip up in the
air and flattened him on the ground and swallowed him up in the depths.
Lilia turned on her gallant defender and said--

"For once in my life I'll thank you to leave me alone. I'll thank your
mother too. For twelve years you've trained me and tortured me, and I'll
stand it no more. Do you think I'm a fool? Do you think I never felt?
Ah! when I came to your house a poor young bride, how you all looked me
over--never a kind word--and discussed me, and thought I might just do;
and your mother corrected me, and your sister snubbed me, and you said
funny things about me to show how clever you were! And when Charles died
I was still to run in strings for the honour of your beastly family,
and I was to be cooped up at Sawston and learn to keep house, and all my
chances spoilt of marrying again. No, thank you! No, thank you! 'Bully?'
'Insolent boy?' Who's that, pray, but you? But, thank goodness, I can
stand up against the world now, for I've found Gino, and this time I
marry for love!"

The coarseness and truth of her attack alike overwhelmed him. But her
supreme insolence found him words, and he too burst forth.

"Yes! and I forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, and think
I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful and impertinent and
contemptible, but I will save you in order to save Irma and our name.
There is going to be such a row in this town that you and he'll be sorry
you came to it. I shall shrink from nothing, for my blood is up. It is
unwise of you to laugh. I forbid you to marry Carella, and I shall tell
him so now."

"Do," she cried. "Tell him so now. Have it out with him. Gino! Gino!
Come in! Avanti! Fra Filippo forbids the banns!"

Gino appeared so quickly that he must have been listening outside the
door.

"Fra Filippo's blood's up. He shrinks from nothing. Oh, take care he
doesn't hurt you!" She swayed about in vulgar imitation of Philip's
walk, and then, with a proud glance at the square shoulders of her
betrothed, flounced out of the room.

Did she intend them to fight? Philip had no intention of doing so; and
no more, it seemed, had Gino, who stood nervously in the middle of the
room with twitching lips and eyes.

"Please sit down, Signor Carella," said Philip in Italian. "Mrs.
Herriton is rather agitated, but there is no reason we should not be
calm. Might I offer you a cigarette? Please sit down."

He refused the cigarette and the chair, and remained standing in the
full glare of the lamp. Philip, not averse to such assistance, got his
own face into shadow.

For a long time he was silent. It might impress Gino, and it also gave
him time to collect himself. He would not this time fall into the error
of blustering, which he had caught so unaccountably from Lilia. He would
make his power felt by restraint.

Why, when he looked up to begin, was Gino convulsed with silent
laughter? It vanished immediately; but he became nervous, and was even
more pompous than he intended.

"Signor Carella, I will be frank with you. I have come to prevent you
marrying Mrs. Herriton, because I see you will both be unhappy together.
She is English, you are Italian; she is accustomed to one thing, you to
another. And--pardon me if I say it--she is rich and you are poor."

"I am not marrying her because she is rich," was the sulky reply.

"I never suggested that for a moment," said Philip courteously. "You are
honourable, I am sure; but are you wise? And let me remind you that we
want her with us at home. Her little daughter will be motherless,
our home will be broken up. If you grant my request you will earn our
thanks--and you will not be without a reward for your disappointment."

"Reward--what reward?" He bent over the back of a chair and looked
earnestly at Philip. They were coming to terms pretty quickly. Poor
Lilia!

Philip said slowly, "What about a thousand lire?"

His soul went forth into one exclamation, and then he was silent, with
gaping lips. Philip would have given double: he had expected a bargain.

"You can have them tonight."

He found words, and said, "It is too late."

"But why?"

"Because--" His voice broke. Philip watched his face,--a face without
refinement perhaps, but not without expression,--watched it quiver and
re-form and dissolve from emotion into emotion. There was avarice at one
moment, and insolence, and politeness, and stupidity, and cunning--and
let us hope that sometimes there was love. But gradually one emotion
dominated, the most unexpected of all; for his chest began to heave and
his eyes to wink and his mouth to twitch, and suddenly he stood erect
and roared forth his whole being in one tremendous laugh.

Philip sprang up, and Gino, who had flung wide his arms to let the
glorious creature go, took him by the shoulders and shook him, and said,
"Because we are married--married--married as soon as I knew you were,
coming. There was no time to tell you. Oh. oh! You have come all the way
for nothing. Oh! And oh, your generosity!" Suddenly he became grave, and
said, "Please pardon me; I am rude. I am no better than a peasant, and
I--" Here he saw Philip's face, and it was too much for him. He gasped
and exploded and crammed his hands into his mouth and spat them out in
another explosion, and gave Philip an aimless push, which toppled him on
to the bed. He uttered a horrified Oh! and then gave up, and bolted away
down the passage, shrieking like a child, to tell the joke to his wife.

For a time Philip lay on the bed, pretending to himself that he was hurt
grievously. He could scarcely see for temper, and in the passage he ran
against Miss Abbott, who promptly burst into tears.

"I sleep at the Globo," he told her, "and start for Sawston tomorrow
morning early. He has assaulted me. I could prosecute him. But shall
not."

"I can't stop here," she sobbed. "I daren't stop here. You will have to
take me with you!"

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

completion: Philip arrives in the small town of Monteriano, where Lilia and Caroline have been staying for the past month. He is tired and worried about how to clean up the mess Lilia has gotten herself into. Miss Abbott meets Philip at the station, and the two of them take a carriage back to the hotel. Philip gets straight to the point and asks Caroline how long Lilia has been engaged. Eleven days, to be exact . Miss Abbott then confesses that she was the one who brought up the idea of marriage . To his further dismay, Philip is told that Lilia's fiance, Gino Carella, is not a nobleman, but rather the son of a dentist in Monteriano. For a wealthy, upper-class family like the Herritons, the social position of a dentist is pretty low on the totem pole. At dinner, Philip is even more disgusted when he meets Gino. Although Gino has his looks going for him, everything else about him is crude and uncouth. Welcoming Gino as part of the family would certainly not be an option. When Philip finally manages to get Lilia alone, the conversation does not go well. Lilia tries to convince Philip that Gino's position as a dentist is improving and that he's climbing up the social ladder. Dismissing Lilia's praise of Gino, Philip says that he has come to rescue Lilia from certain disgrace. But Lilia insists that this time she will marry for love and calls Gino into the room. Philip bluntly offers Gino money in exchange for breaking off the engagement, but Gino merely laughs defiantly and drops the big news: He and Lilia are already married! They got married as soon as they heard Philip was coming. Oh, goodness! Where are those smelling salts? In the confusion that ensues, Gino gives Philip a friendly shove and then rushes off to tell Lilia the joke. Imagining that he has been physically assaulted, Philip immediately tells Miss Abbott that he will be returning to Sawston the next day. Caroline pleads with him to take her back to England with him.


prompt:
Chapter: Opposite the Volterra gate of Monteriano, outside the city, is a very
respectable white-washed mud wall, with a coping of red crinkled tiles
to keep it from dissolution. It would suggest a gentleman's garden if
there was not in its middle a large hole, which grows larger with every
rain-storm. Through the hole is visible, firstly, the iron gate that is
intended to close it; secondly, a square piece of ground which, though
not quite, mud, is at the same time not exactly grass; and finally,
another wall, stone this time, which has a wooden door in the middle and
two wooden-shuttered windows each side, and apparently forms the facade
of a one-storey house.

This house is bigger than it looks, for it slides for two storeys down
the hill behind, and the wooden door, which is always locked, really
leads into the attic. The knowing person prefers to follow the
precipitous mule-track round the turn of the mud wall till he can take
the edifice in the rear. Then--being now on a level with the cellars--he
lifts up his head and shouts. If his voice sounds like something
light--a letter, for example, or some vegetables, or a bunch of
flowers--a basket is let out of the first-floor windows by a string,
into which he puts his burdens and departs. But if he sounds like
something heavy, such as a log of wood, or a piece of meat, or a
visitor, he is interrogated, and then bidden or forbidden to ascend.
The ground floor and the upper floor of that battered house are alike
deserted, and the inmates keep the central portion, just as in a dying
body all life retires to the heart. There is a door at the top of the
first flight of stairs, and if the visitor is admitted he will find a
welcome which is not necessarily cold. There are several rooms, some
dark and mostly stuffy--a reception-room adorned with horsehair chairs,
wool-work stools, and a stove that is never lit--German bad taste
without German domesticity broods over that room; also a living-room,
which insensibly glides into a bedroom when the refining influence of
hospitality is absent, and real bedrooms; and last, but not least, the
loggia, where you can live day and night if you feel inclined, drinking
vermouth and smoking cigarettes, with leagues of olive-trees and
vineyards and blue-green hills to watch you.

It was in this house that the brief and inevitable tragedy of Lilia's
married life took place. She made Gino buy it for her, because it was
there she had first seen him sitting on the mud wall that faced the
Volterra gate. She remembered how the evening sun had struck his hair,
and how he had smiled down at her, and being both sentimental and
unrefined, was determined to have the man and the place together. Things
in Italy are cheap for an Italian, and, though he would have preferred
a house in the piazza, or better still a house at Siena, or, bliss above
bliss, a house at Leghorn, he did as she asked, thinking that perhaps
she showed her good taste in preferring so retired an abode.

The house was far too big for them, and there was a general concourse of
his relatives to fill it up. His father wished to make it a patriarchal
concern, where all the family should have their rooms and meet together
for meals, and was perfectly willing to give up the new practice at
Poggibonsi and preside. Gino was quite willing too, for he was an
affectionate youth who liked a large home-circle, and he told it as
a pleasant bit of news to Lilia, who did not attempt to conceal her
horror.

At once he was horrified too; saw that the idea was monstrous; abused
himself to her for having suggested it; rushed off to tell his father
that it was impossible. His father complained that prosperity was
already corrupting him and making him unsympathetic and hard; his mother
cried; his sisters accused him of blocking their social advance. He
was apologetic, and even cringing, until they turned on Lilia. Then
he turned on them, saying that they could not understand, much less
associate with, the English lady who was his wife; that there should be
one master in that house--himself.

Lilia praised and petted him on his return, calling him brave and a hero
and other endearing epithets. But he was rather blue when his clan left
Monteriano in much dignity--a dignity which was not at all impaired
by the acceptance of a cheque. They took the cheque not to Poggibonsi,
after all, but to Empoli--a lively, dusty town some twenty miles off.
There they settled down in comfort, and the sisters said they had been
driven to it by Gino.

The cheque was, of course, Lilia's, who was extremely generous, and was
quite willing to know anybody so long as she had not to live with them,
relations-in-law being on her nerves. She liked nothing better than
finding out some obscure and distant connection--there were several of
them--and acting the lady bountiful, leaving behind her bewilderment,
and too often discontent. Gino wondered how it was that all his people,
who had formerly seemed so pleasant, had suddenly become plaintive
and disagreeable. He put it down to his lady wife's magnificence, in
comparison with which all seemed common. Her money flew apace, in
spite of the cheap living. She was even richer than he expected; and he
remembered with shame how he had once regretted his inability to accept
the thousand lire that Philip Herriton offered him in exchange for her.
It would have been a shortsighted bargain.

Lilia enjoyed settling into the house, with nothing to do except give
orders to smiling workpeople, and a devoted husband as interpreter. She
wrote a jaunty account of her happiness to Mrs. Herriton, and Harriet
answered the letter, saying (1) that all future communications should be
addressed to the solicitors; (2) would Lilia return an inlaid box which
Harriet had lent her--but not given--to keep handkerchiefs and collars
in?

"Look what I am giving up to live with you!" she said to Gino, never
omitting to lay stress on her condescension. He took her to mean the
inlaid box, and said that she need not give it up at all.

"Silly fellow, no! I mean the life. Those Herritons are very well
connected. They lead Sawston society. But what do I care, so long as I
have my silly fellow!" She always treated him as a boy, which he was,
and as a fool, which he was not, thinking herself so immeasurably
superior to him that she neglected opportunity after opportunity of
establishing her rule. He was good-looking and indolent; therefore he
must be stupid. He was poor; therefore he would never dare to criticize
his benefactress. He was passionately in love with her; therefore she
could do exactly as she liked.

"It mayn't be heaven below," she thought, "but it's better than
Charles."

And all the time the boy was watching her, and growing up.

She was reminded of Charles by a disagreeable letter from the
solicitors, bidding her disgorge a large sum of money for Irma, in
accordance with her late husband's will. It was just like Charles's
suspicious nature to have provided against a second marriage. Gino was
equally indignant, and between them they composed a stinging reply,
which had no effect. He then said that Irma had better come out and live
with them. "The air is good, so is the food; she will be happy here, and
we shall not have to part with the money." But Lilia had not the courage
even to suggest this to the Herritons, and an unexpected terror seized
her at the thought of Irma or any English child being educated at
Monteriano.

Gino became terribly depressed over the solicitors' letter, more
depressed than she thought necessary. There was no more to do in the
house, and he spent whole days in the loggia leaning over the parapet or
sitting astride it disconsolately.

"Oh, you idle boy!" she cried, pinching his muscles. "Go and play
pallone."

"I am a married man," he answered, without raising his head. "I do not
play games any more."

"Go and see your friends then."

"I have no friends now."

"Silly, silly, silly! You can't stop indoors all day!"

"I want to see no one but you." He spat on to an olive-tree.

"Now, Gino, don't be silly. Go and see your friends, and bring them to
see me. We both of us like society."

He looked puzzled, but allowed himself to be persuaded, went out, found
that he was not as friendless as he supposed, and returned after several
hours in altered spirits. Lilia congratulated herself on her good
management.

"I'm ready, too, for people now," she said. "I mean to wake you all up,
just as I woke up Sawston. Let's have plenty of men--and make them bring
their womenkind. I mean to have real English tea-parties."

"There is my aunt and her husband; but I thought you did not want to
receive my relatives."

"I never said such a--"

"But you would be right," he said earnestly. "They are not for you.
Many of them are in trade, and even we are little more; you should have
gentlefolk and nobility for your friends."

"Poor fellow," thought Lilia. "It is sad for him to discover that his
people are vulgar." She began to tell him that she loved him just for
his silly self, and he flushed and began tugging at his moustache.

"But besides your relatives I must have other people here. Your friends
have wives and sisters, haven't they?"

"Oh, yes; but of course I scarcely know them."

"Not know your friends' people?"

"Why, no. If they are poor and have to work for their living I may see
them--but not otherwise. Except--" He stopped. The chief exception was
a young lady, to whom he had once been introduced for matrimonial
purposes. But the dowry had proved inadequate, and the acquaintance
terminated.

"How funny! But I mean to change all that. Bring your friends to see me,
and I will make them bring their people."

He looked at her rather hopelessly.

"Well, who are the principal people here? Who leads society?"

The governor of the prison, he supposed, and the officers who assisted
him.

"Well, are they married?"

"Yes."

"There we are. Do you know them?"

"Yes--in a way."

"I see," she exclaimed angrily. "They look down on you, do they, poor
boy? Wait!" He assented. "Wait! I'll soon stop that. Now, who else is
there?"

"The marchese, sometimes, and the canons of the Collegiate Church."

"Married?"

"The canons--" he began with twinkling eyes.

"Oh, I forgot your horrid celibacy. In England they would be the centre
of everything. But why shouldn't I know them? Would it make it easier if
I called all round? Isn't that your foreign way?"

He did not think it would make it easier.

"But I must know some one! Who were the men you were talking to this
afternoon?"

Low-class men. He could scarcely recollect their names.

"But, Gino dear, if they're low class, why did you talk to them? Don't
you care about your position?"

All Gino cared about at present was idleness and pocket-money, and his
way of expressing it was to exclaim, "Ouf-pouf! How hot it is in here.
No air; I sweat all over. I expire. I must cool myself, or I shall never
get to sleep." In his funny abrupt way he ran out on to the loggia,
where he lay full length on the parapet, and began to smoke and spit
under the silence of the stars.

Lilia gathered somehow from this conversation that Continental society
was not the go-as-you-please thing she had expected. Indeed she could
not see where Continental society was. Italy is such a delightful place
to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite
luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality
of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy
of the caffe or the street the great question of our life has been
solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But is accomplished at
the expense of the sisterhood of women. Why should you not make friends
with your neighbour at the theatre or in the train, when you know and
he knows that feminine criticism and feminine insight and feminine
prejudice will never come between you? Though you become as David and
Jonathan, you need never enter his home, nor he yours. All your lives
you will meet under the open air, the only roof-tree of the South, under
which he will spit and swear, and you will drop your h's, and nobody
will think the worse of either.

Meanwhile the women--they have, of course, their house and their church,
with its admirable and frequent services, to which they are escorted by
the maid. Otherwise they do not go out much, for it is not genteel to
walk, and you are too poor to keep a carriage. Occasionally you will
take them to the caffe or theatre, and immediately all your wonted
acquaintance there desert you, except those few who are expecting
and expected to marry into your family. It is all very sad. But one
consolation emerges--life is very pleasant in Italy if you are a man.

Hitherto Gino had not interfered with Lilia. She was so much older than
he was, and so much richer, that he regarded her as a superior being who
answered to other laws. He was not wholly surprised, for strange rumours
were always blowing over the Alps of lands where men and women had the
same amusements and interests, and he had often met that privileged
maniac, the lady tourist, on her solitary walks. Lilia took solitary
walks too, and only that week a tramp had grabbed at her watch--an
episode which is supposed to be indigenous in Italy, though really less
frequent there than in Bond Street. Now that he knew her better, he
was inevitably losing his awe: no one could live with her and keep it,
especially when she had been so silly as to lose a gold watch and chain.
As he lay thoughtful along the parapet, he realized for the first time
the responsibilities of monied life. He must save her from dangers,
physical and social, for after all she was a woman. "And I," he
reflected, "though I am young, am at all events a man, and know what is
right."

He found her still in the living-room, combing her hair, for she had
something of the slattern in her nature, and there was no need to keep
up appearances.

"You must not go out alone," he said gently. "It is not safe. If you
want to walk, Perfetta shall accompany you." Perfetta was a widowed
cousin, too humble for social aspirations, who was living with them as
factotum.

"Very well," smiled Lilia, "very well"--as if she were addressing a
solicitous kitten. But for all that she never took a solitary walk
again, with one exception, till the day of her death.

Days passed, and no one called except poor relatives. She began to feel
dull. Didn't he know the Sindaco or the bank manager? Even the landlady
of the Stella d'Italia would be better than no one. She, when she went
into the town, was pleasantly received; but people naturally found a
difficulty in getting on with a lady who could not learn their language.
And the tea-party, under Gino's adroit management, receded ever and ever
before her.

He had a good deal of anxiety over her welfare, for she did not
settle down in the house at all. But he was comforted by a welcome and
unexpected visitor. As he was going one afternoon for the letters--they
were delivered at the door, but it took longer to get them at the
office--some one humorously threw a cloak over his head, and when he
disengaged himself he saw his very dear friend Spiridione Tesi of the
custom-house at Chiasso, whom he had not met for two years. What joy!
what salutations! so that all the passersby smiled with approval on the
amiable scene. Spiridione's brother was now station-master at Bologna,
and thus he himself could spend his holiday travelling over Italy at the
public expense. Hearing of Gino's marriage, he had come to see him on
his way to Siena, where lived his own uncle, lately monied too.

"They all do it," he exclaimed, "myself excepted." He was not quite
twenty-three. "But tell me more. She is English. That is good, very
good. An English wife is very good indeed. And she is rich?"

"Immensely rich."

"Blonde or dark?"

"Blonde."

"Is it possible!"

"It pleases me very much," said Gino simply. "If you remember, I always
desired a blonde." Three or four men had collected, and were listening.

"We all desire one," said Spiridione. "But you, Gino, deserve your good
fortune, for you are a good son, a brave man, and a true friend, and
from the very first moment I saw you I wished you well."

"No compliments, I beg," said Gino, standing with his hands crossed on
his chest and a smile of pleasure on his face.

Spiridione addressed the other men, none of whom he had ever seen
before. "Is it not true? Does not he deserve this wealthy blonde?"

"He does deserve her," said all the men.

It is a marvellous land, where you love it or hate it.

There were no letters, and of course they sat down at the Caffe
Garibaldi, by the Collegiate Church--quite a good caffe that for so
small a city. There were marble-topped tables, and pillars terra-cotta
below and gold above, and on the ceiling was a fresco of the battle of
Solferino. One could not have desired a prettier room. They had vermouth
and little cakes with sugar on the top, which they chose gravely at
the counter, pinching them first to be sure they were fresh. And though
vermouth is barely alcoholic, Spiridione drenched his with soda-water to
be sure that it should not get into his head.

They were in high spirits, and elaborate compliments alternated
curiously with gentle horseplay. But soon they put up their legs on a
pair of chairs and began to smoke.

"Tell me," said Spiridione--"I forgot to ask--is she young?"

"Thirty-three."

"Ah, well, we cannot have everything."

"But you would be surprised. Had she told me twenty-eight, I should not
have disbelieved her."

"Is she SIMPATICA?" (Nothing will translate that word.)

Gino dabbed at the sugar and said after a silence, "Sufficiently so."

"It is a most important thing."

"She is rich, she is generous, she is affable, she addresses her
inferiors without haughtiness."

There was another silence. "It is not sufficient," said the other. "One
does not define it thus." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Last month
a German was smuggling cigars. The custom-house was dark. Yet I
refused because I did not like him. The gifts of such men do not bring
happiness. NON ERA SIMPATICO. He paid for every one, and the fine for
deception besides."

"Do you gain much beyond your pay?" asked Gino, diverted for an instant.

"I do not accept small sums now. It is not worth the risk. But the
German was another matter. But listen, my Gino, for I am older than
you and more full of experience. The person who understands us at first
sight, who never irritates us, who never bores, to whom we can pour
forth every thought and wish, not only in speech but in silence--that is
what I mean by SIMPATICO."

"There are such men, I know," said Gino. "And I have heard it said of
children. But where will you find such a woman?"

"That is true. Here you are wiser than I. SONO POCO SIMPATICHE LE DONNE.
And the time we waste over them is much." He sighed dolefully, as if he
found the nobility of his sex a burden.

"One I have seen who may be so. She spoke very little, but she was a
young lady--different to most. She, too, was English, the companion of
my wife here. But Fra Filippo, the brother-in-law, took her back with
him. I saw them start. He was very angry."

Then he spoke of his exciting and secret marriage, and they made fun of
the unfortunate Philip, who had travelled over Europe to stop it.

"I regret though," said Gino, when they had finished laughing, "that I
toppled him on to the bed. A great tall man! And when I am really amused
I am often impolite."

"You will never see him again," said Spiridione, who carried plenty of
philosophy about him. "And by now the scene will have passed from his
mind."

"It sometimes happens that such things are recollected longest. I shall
never see him again, of course; but it is no benefit to me that he
should wish me ill. And even if he has forgotten, I am still sorry that
I toppled him on to the bed."

So their talk continued, at one moment full of childishness and
tender wisdom, the next moment scandalously gross. The shadows of the
terra-cotta pillars lengthened, and tourists, flying through the Palazzo
Pubblico opposite, could observe how the Italians wasted time.

The sight of tourists reminded Gino of something he might say. "I
want to consult you since you are so kind as to take an interest in my
affairs. My wife wishes to take solitary walks."

Spiridione was shocked.

"But I have forbidden her."

"Naturally."

"She does not yet understand. She asked me to accompany her
sometimes--to walk without object! You know, she would like me to be
with her all day."

"I see. I see." He knitted his brows and tried to think how he could
help his friend. "She needs employment. Is she a Catholic?"

"No."

"That is a pity. She must be persuaded. It will be a great solace to her
when she is alone."

"I am a Catholic, but of course I never go to church."

"Of course not. Still, you might take her at first. That is what my
brother has done with his wife at Bologna and he has joined the Free
Thinkers. He took her once or twice himself, and now she has acquired
the habit and continues to go without him."

"Most excellent advice, and I thank you for it. But she wishes to give
tea-parties--men and women together whom she has never seen."

"Oh, the English! they are always thinking of tea. They carry it by the
kilogramme in their trunks, and they are so clumsy that they always pack
it at the top. But it is absurd!"

"What am I to do about it?"

"Do nothing. Or ask me!"

"Come!" cried Gino, springing up. "She will be quite pleased."

The dashing young fellow coloured crimson. "Of course I was only
joking."

"I know. But she wants me to take my friends. Come now! Waiter!"

"If I do come," cried the other, "and take tea with you, this bill must
be my affair."

"Certainly not; you are in my country!"

A long argument ensued, in which the waiter took part, suggesting
various solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill came to
eightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter brought it up
to ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude on one side and of
deprecation on the other, and when courtesies were at their height they
suddenly linked arms and swung down the street, tickling each other with
lemonade straws as they went.

Lilia was delighted to see them, and became more animated than Gino had
known her for a long time. The tea tasted of chopped hay, and they asked
to be allowed to drink it out of a wine-glass, and refused milk; but, as
she repeatedly observed, this was something like. Spiridione's manners
were very agreeable. He kissed her hand on introduction, and as his
profession had taught him a little English, conversation did not flag.

"Do you like music?" she asked.

"Passionately," he replied. "I have not studied scientific music, but
the music of the heart, yes."

So she played on the humming piano very badly, and he sang, not so
badly. Gino got out a guitar and sang too, sitting out on the loggia. It
was a most agreeable visit.

Gino said he would just walk his friend back to his lodgings. As they
went he said, without the least trace of malice or satire in his voice,
"I think you are quite right. I shall not bring people to the house any
more. I do not see why an English wife should be treated differently.
This is Italy."

"You are very wise," exclaimed the other; "very wise indeed. The more
precious a possession the more carefully it should be guarded."

They had reached the lodging, but went on as far as the Caffe Garibaldi,
where they spent a long and most delightful evening.

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

completion: Newlyweds Lilia and Gino are settling into the new home they just bought in Monteriano--a pretty stone house surrounded by olive trees and vineyards. We totally wouldn't mind being invited as houseguests. Initially, Lilia seems to be the one wearing the pants in the household. She doesn't want Gino's family to move in with them , and Gino complies. When Lilia writes home to Mrs. Herriton, a reply from Harriet states that from now on Lilia can only contact the family through lawyers. Harriet also requests Lilia to return the inlaid box that had been lent, not given, to her. Gino grows increasingly bored and idle since he no longer has to work for a living . Meanwhile, Lilia gets it into her head that she wants to host a tea party and invite the important members of society in Monteriano. But Gino's friends are mostly all lower-class workingmen. Gino also tells her that in Italy, women aren't allowed to take walks alone without someone accompanying her. Lilia starts realizing that for a woman, life in Italy is way different than in England. One day, Gino runs into Spiridione Tesi, an old friend who had heard of Gino's marriage and traveled from Chiasso to visit him. They spend a delightful afternoon drinking vermouth, reminiscing on old times, and talking about Gino's new wife. Gino invites Spiridione home to meet Lilia, and the evening passes merrily with good food and plenty of music.