From the terrace in front of it you had a magnificent view of Florence; behind was an old garden, with few flowers, but with fine trees, hedges of cut box, grass walks and an artificial grotto in which water cascaded with a cool, silvery sound from a cornucopia. The house had been built in the sixteenth century by a noble Florentine, whose impoverished descendants had sold it to some English people, and it was they who had lent it for a period to Mary Panton. Though the rooms were large and lofty, it was of no great size and she managed very well with the three servants they had left her. It was somewhat scantily furnished with fine old furniture and it had an air; and though there was no central heating, so that when she had arrived at the end of March it had been still bitterly cold, the Leonards, its owners, had put in bathrooms and it was comfortable enough to live in. It was June now and Mary spent most of the day, when she was at home, on the terrace from which she could see the domes and towers of Florence, or in the garden behind.
