Olive in Italy

Jean sat leaning forward that he might see the road. The night was dark, starless, and very wet, and he and the chauffeur were all streaming with rain and splashed with liquid m...

After the first week Olive went only to Camille's _atelier_. He was working hard at his "_étude blanche_," but no one had been allowed to see it, except, of course, M'sieur le D...

Florence, in the great days of the Renaissance, bore many men whom now she delights to honour, and Ugo Manelli was one of these. He helped to build a bridge over the Arno, he ha...

October can be cold enough sometimes in the Val d'Arno when the snow falls on the Apennines, and the woods of Vallombrosa are sere, and Florence, the flower city, lies then at t...

Olive leant against the balustrade of the little terrace. She was watching the fireflies that sparkled in the dusk of the vineyards in the valley below. A breeze had risen from...

"He will be killed--and for me." "For me." "For me." She heard that echo of her thought through all the clamour of the streets, the shrill cries, the clatter of hoofs, the rattl...

Olive was tired, and now that she was alone she knew that she was also a little afraid, so that she lingered on the way and went slowly up the stairs of the house in the Piazza...

"_Via!_" said Vincenzo, and his black, oily forefinger, uplifted, gave emphasis to his words. "There are no such things as ghosts. This princess of yours cannot be seen at moonr...

The Villa Fiorelli is set high among the olive groves above the village of Settignano. There are Medicean balls on a shield over the great wrought-iron gates, and the swarthy sp...

It was the drowsy middle of the afternoon and the heat was intense. All the grey-green and golden land of Tuscany lay still and helpless at the mercy of the sun. The birds had l...

Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal was buried in a side chapel of the church of San Miniato al Monte, and his counterfeit presentment, wrought in stone, lies on the tomb Rossellino mad...

The table was set for lunch out on the terrace where Astorre lay gazing upon his Tuscany, veiled in a shimmering haze of heat and crowned with August blue. The best coffee cups...

The Vicolo dei Moribondi is the narrowest of all the steep stone-paved streets that lead from the upper town to the market-place of Siena, and the great red bulk of the Palazzo...

The virtue that bruises not only the heel of the Evil One but the heart of the beloved is never its own reward. The thought of Jean's aching loneliness oppressed Olive far more...

Olive, advised by a clerk in Cook's office, had taken a through ticket to Siena, third class to Dover, first on the boat, second in France and Italy. She got to Victoria in good...

Olive sat idly on one of the benches near the great wall in the Pincian gardens. She had been to an office in the Piazza di Spagna and had there been assured for the seventh tim...

Olive was alone in the compartment of the train that bore her away from Florence and from Jean. She had a book; it lay open on her lap, and she had tried to read, but the lines...

A large parcel addressed to Miss Agar was brought to the house a few weeks later. Olive was out giving a lesson when it came, and Gemma turned it over, examining the post-mark a...

Camille, loitering on the terrace of the old garden of the Villa Medici, was quick to hear the creaking of the iron gate upon its hinges. His pale face brightened as he threw aw...

To some men their world is most precious when their arms may compass it. These are the great lovers. It seemed to Jean now that it mattered little whether this grey hour of rain...

Olive told herself that Hilaire was very good to her in the days that followed. He came sometimes into the room where she was, to find her sitting on the floor amid the piles of...

The Aquila Verde was the oldest of the tall houses in the narrow Vicolo dei Donati; the lower windows were barred with iron worn by the rains of four hundred years, and there we...

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

Olive was careful to sit down with Carmela on one side of their box on the second tier, leaving two chairs in front for the _fidanzati_, but the young man made several efforts t...

Her aunt shrugged her fat shoulders. "No! The _donna di servizio_ is mistress here, and she has ordained that the cousin shall not be disturbed. She has even locked the door, an...

In the Cascine gardens the lush green grass of the glades was strewn with leaves; soon the branches would be bare, or veiled only in winter mists, and the Arno, swollen with rai...

"I have had a letter from the Duchess. She is leaving Rome to-day but she wants to see me before she goes. It must be about her daughter's portrait. I must go to her hotel, but...

She reassured him on that point and went on to explain that she was going to live alone. "I have made arrangements," she added vaguely. "A man will come with a truck to take my...

He did not seem to hear her. He had drawn the long steel pins out of her hat and had thrown the pretty thing down on the floor, and the loosened coils of shining hair fell over...

For some days and nights Olive lived only to eat and sleep. When she woke it was to hear a kind old voice urging her to take hot milk or soup, to see a kind old face framed in w...

Olive sat alone at the end of one of the tiers of the stone amphitheatre built into the hill that rises, ilex clad, to the heights of San Giorgio. Some other women were there, m...

Jean came to the villa a little before noon on the following day. Hilaire, who was in the library, heard his voice in the hall calling the dogs, heard him whistling some little...

Edna's room was full of flowers, roses, narcissi and violets, and the air was heavy with their scent. Filippo had never failed in his _petits soins_. It was so easy to give an o...

Many women are shepherded through all life's journeyings by their men--fathers, brothers, husbands--who look out their trains for them, put them in the care of guards, and shiel...