CHAPTER
XVI
Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, and Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, on the frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were grouped pink shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves in airy garments of blue and green in a meadow that ended abruptly to make room for long windows. The girl leaned back and sipped her tea luxuriously. She was clad in a gown that any shepherdess among them might have envied, a pale yellow crêpy thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before her the Countess Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaid Florentine table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf. Upon it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorina now and then feasted
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