All Chapters of DELICIA - DELIGHT - : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"Well, if Lord Clements does not want to be at the trouble of ordering or lives, so much the better", Patrick said. "You want to cut a dash in town, and I daresay I can find plenty of amusement if we have not a crusty old guardian to spoil the fun". "Yes", Miss Elizabeth agreed, but somewhat doubtfully. "But in common civility, we must ask his permission to set up house in Rome. I do hope we shall not find him set against us, regarding it as an imposition, I mean; perhaps thinking that our uncle might rather have been appointed instead of himself. It must appear very singular to him. It is an awkward business, Parte". A grunt being the only response to that, she said no more, but leaned back in her corner and perused the unsatisfactory communication she had received from Lord Clements. It was an awkward business. His lordship, who must, she reflected, be going on for sixty five or seventy years of age, showed a marked disinclination to trouble himself when

He smiled. "No such thing, ma'am. We cannot tell but what if my room should properly be yours? My friend and I..." he made a sight gesture as though to indicate someone in the group behind him "... have acquaintance in the neighborhood, and may readily command a lodging at Hungertown Lodge. I - rather I should say we - are happy to be of service".There was nothing to do but thank him, and accept his offer. He vowed again, and withdrew to rejoin his friends. The landlord, relieved to have been rescued from a difficult situation, led the way out of the coffee room, and delivered his new guests into the care of a chamber maid. In a very little time they found themselves in possession of two respectable apartments on the first floor, and had nothing further to do than to await the arrival of their lugages. It was one of Miss Elizabeth's first concern to discover the name of her unknown benefactor, but by the time she had seen her baggage bestowed, and arranged for a truckle

To one used to the silence of a country night sleep at the Vinaio Inn, Florence, on the eve of a great fight was almost an impossibility. Sounds of loud revelry floated up from the coffee room to Miss Tellaro's bed chamber until the early hour of the morning; she dozed fitfully, time and again awakened by a burst of laughter below stairs, voices in the street below her window, or a hurrying footstep outside her door. After two o'clock the noise abated gradually, and she was able at last to fall into a sleep which lasted until three long blasts on a horn rudely interrupted it at twenty three minutes past seven. She started up in bed. "Good God, what how?" Her maid, who had also been awakened by the sudden commotion, slipped out of the truckle bed, and ran to peep between the blinds of the window. She was able to report that it was only the Fillinburg mail, and stayed to giggle over the appearance presented by the night-capped passengers descending from it to par

Patrick drank it all in, feeling very humble and ignorant. In La Spezia he had been used to know everyone and he known everywhere, but it was evident that in Rome circles it was different. Tellaro and the Tellaro fortune counted for nothing. He was only an unknown provincial here. Mr Fritzwa produced an enormous turnip watch from his pocket and consulted it. "It's after twelve", he announced. "If the magistrates have got wind of this and mean to stop it, it will be a damn hum!" But just at the moment some cheering, not unmixed with catcalls and a few derisive shouts, was set up, and Steve Angelo, accompanied by his seconds, Faruk Lacesh, the Black, and Sancho Riclux, arbiter of sport, came up to the ring. "He looks like a strong fellow", said Patrick, anxiously scrutinizing as much as he could see of the Negro for the enveloping folds of his great coat. "Weighs something between thirteen and fourteen stone", said Mr Fritzwa knowledgeably. "They say he loses his temper. You weren't a

A fine burst of country met her eyes, and a few steps down a by-road brought her to the church, a very handsome example of later perpendicular work, with a battlemented tower, and a curious weathervane in the form of a fiddle upon one of its pinnacles. There was no one of whom she could inquire the history of this odd vane, so after exploring the church, and resting a little while on a bench outside, she set out to walk back to Florence. At the bottom of the hill leading out of the village, a pebble became logged in her right sandal and after a very little way, began to make walking an uncomfortable business. Miss Tellaro wriggled her toes in an effort to shift the stone, but it would not answer. Unless she wished to limp all the way Florence, she must take off her shoe and shake the pebble out. She hesitated, for she was upon the high road and had no wish to be discovered in her stockings by any chance whatsoever. One or two carriages had passed her already, she supposed them to be