Was I like that--was I so constantly silent? I
suspect I was when I was perplexed, and Heaven knows that very often my
perplexity was extreme. Before I went away I had a few more words _tete-
a-tete_ with the Countess.
"I hope you are not leaving Florence yet," she said; "you will stay a
while longer?"
I answered that I came only for a week, and that my week was over.
"I stay on from day to day, I am so much interested."
"Eh, it's the beautiful moment. I'm glad our city pleases you!"
"Florence pleases me--and I take a paternal interest to our young
friend," I added, glancing at Stanmer. "I have become very fond of him."
"_Bel tipo inglese_," said my hostess. "And he is very intelligent; he
has a beautiful mind."
She stood there resting her smile and her clear, expressive eyes upon me.
"I don't like to praise him too much," I rejoined, "lest I should appear
to praise myself; he reminds me so much of what I was at his age. If
your beautiful mother were to come to life for an hour she would see the
resemblance."
She gave me a little amused stare.
"And yet you don't look at all like him!"
"Ah, you didn't know me when I was twenty-five. I was very handsome!
And, moreover, it isn't that, it's the mental resemblance.
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