The Emancipated | Page 7

this is an old topic; better not to beat
one's self uselessly."
"A Puritan at Naples," mused Mallard. "The situation is interesting."
"Very. But then she doesn't really live in Naples. From the first day she
has shown herself bent on resisting every influence of the place. She
won't admit that the climate benefits her; she won't allow an expression
of interest in anything Italian to escape her. I doubt whether we shall
ever get her even to Pompeii. One afternoon I persuaded her to walk up
here with me, and tried to make her confess that this view was beautiful.
She grudged making any such admission. It is her nature to distrust the
beautiful."
"To be sure. That is the badge of her persuasion."
"Last Sunday we didn't know whether to compassionate her or to be
angry with her. The Bradshaws are at Mrs. Gluck's. You know them by
name, I think I There again, an interesting study, in a very different
way. Twice in the day she shut herself up with them in their rooms, and
they held a dissident service. The hours she spent here were passed in
the solitude of her own room, lest she should witness our profane
enjoyment of the fine weather. Eleanor refrained from touching the
piano, and at meals kept the gravest countenance, in mere kindness. I
doubt whether that is right. It isn't as though we were dealing with a
woman whose mind is hopelessly--immatured; she is only a girl still,
and I know she has brains if she could be induced to use them."
"Mrs. Baske has a remarkable face, it seems to me," said Mallard.
"It enrages me to talk of the matter."
They were now on the road which runs along the ridge of Posillipo; at a
point where it is parted only by a low wall from the westward declivity,
they paused and looked towards the setting sun.
"What a noise from Fuorigrotta!" murmured Spence, when he had
leaned for a moment on the wall. "It always amuses me. Only in this
part of the world could so small a place make such a clamour."
They were looking away from Naples. At the foot of the vine-covered
hillside lay the noisy village, or suburb, named from its position at the

outer end of the tunnel which the Romans pierced to make a shorter
way between Naples and Puteoli; thence stretched an extensive plain,
set in a deep amphitheatre of hills, and bounded by the sea. Vineyards
and maizefields, pine-trees and poplars, diversify its surface, and
through the midst of it runs a long, straight road, dwindling till it
reaches the shore at the hamlet of Bagnoli. Follow the enclosing ridge
to the left, to where its slope cuts athwart plain and sea and sky; there
close upon the coast lies the island rock of Nisida, meeting-place of
Cicero and Brutus after Caesar's death. Turn to the opposite quarter of
the plain. First rises the cliff of Camaldoli, where from their
oak-shadowed lawn the monks look forth upon as fair a prospect as is
beheld by man. Lower hills succeed, hiding Pozzuoli and the inner
curve of its bay; behind them, too, is the nook which shelters Lake
Avernus; and at a little distance, by the further shore, are the ruins of
Cumae, first home of the Greeks upon Italian soil. A long promontory
curves round the gulf; the dark crag at the end of it is Cape Misenum,
and a little on the hither side, obscured in remoteness, lies what once
was Baiae. Beyond the promontory gleams again a blue line of sea. The
low length of Procida is its limit, and behind that, crowning the view,
stands the mountain-height of Ischia.
Over all, the hues of an autumn evening in Campania. From behind a
bulk of cloud, here and there tossed by high wind currents into fantastic
shapes, sprang rays of fire, burning to the zenith. Between the
sea-beach at Bagnoli and the summit of Ischia, tract followed upon
tract of colour that each moment underwent a subtle change, darkening
here, there fading into exquisite transparencies of distance, till by
degrees the islands lost projection and became mere films against the
declining day. The plain was ruddy with dead vine-leaves, and golden
with the decaying foliage of the poplars; Camaldoli and its neighbour
heights stood gorgeously enrobed. In itself, a picture so beautiful that
the eye wearied with delight; in its memories, a source of solemn joy,
inexhaustible for ever.
"I suppose," said Mallard, in the undertone of reflection, "the pagan
associations of Naples are a great obstacle to Mrs. Baske's enjoyment
of the scenery."
"She admits that."
"By-the-bye, what are likely to be the relations between her and Miss

Doran?"
"I have wondered. They seem to keep