Wild Margaret by Charles Garvice

It was autumn, but such an autumn as often puts summer to shame. The skies were as blue, the air as soft, as those of July; but that the leaves had changed their emerald hues for those of russet-brown and gold, one might well be tempted to believe that the summer was still with us, and the winter afar off.

The sun poured its generous warmth over the Villa Capri, laving the white stone front of the graceful house with its bright rays, and tinting the statues on the terraces, which, in Italian fashion, rose in three tiers from the smooth lawn to the _salon_ and dining-room windows. On the highest of the three terraces, lying back in a hammock chair of velvet tapestry, was an old lady with a face of aristocratic beauty set in snow-white hair. At a little distance, pacing up and down, were two young ladies, the younger of the two with her arm round the waist of her companion, and her beautiful young face turned up with that air of pure devotion and affection which only exists in the heart of one woman for another.