"Oh? Would n't that be rather a pity?" Peter said. "She's so
extremely pretty. I don't know when I have seen prettier brown
eyes than hers."
"Well, in a few years, I expect we shall see those pretty brown
eyes looking out from under a sister's coif. No, I don't think
it will be a pity. Nuns and sisters, I think, are the happiest
people in the world--and priests. Have you ever met any one
who seemed happier than my uncle, for example?"
"I have certainly never met any one who seemed sweeter,
kinder," Peter confessed. "He has a wonderful old face."
"He's a wonderful old man," said she. "I 'm going to try to
keep him a prisoner here for the rest of the summer--though he
will have it that he's just run down for a week. He works a
great deal too hard when he's in Rome. He's the only Cardinal
I've ever heard of, who takes practical charge of his titular
church. But here in the country he's out-of-doors all the
blessed day, hand in hand with Emilia. He's as young as she
is, I believe. They play together like children--and make--me
feel as staid and solemn and grown-up as one of Mr. Kenneth
Grahame's Olympians."
Peter laughed. Then, in the moment of silence that followed,
he happened to let his eyes stray up the valley.
"Hello!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Someone has been painting our
mountain green."
The Duchessa turned, to look; and she too uttered an
exclamation.
By some accident of reflection or refraction, the snows of
Monte Sfiorito had become bright green, as if the light that
fell on them had passed through emeralds. They both paused, to
gaze and marvel for a little. Indeed, the prospect was a
pleasing one, as well as a surprising--the sunny lawns, the
high trees, the blue lake, and then that bright green mountain.
"I have never known anything like those snow-peaks for sailing
under false colours," Peter said. "I have seen them every
colour of the calendar, except their native white."
"You must n't blame the poor things," pleaded the Duchessa.
"They can't help it. It's all along o' the distance and the
atmosphere and the sun."
She closed her fan, with which she had been more or less idly
playing throughout their dialogue, and replaced it on the
table. Among the books there--French books, for the most part,
in yellow paper--Peter saw, with something of a flutter (he
could never see it without something of a flutter), the
grey-and-gold binding of "A Man of Words."