noon
He was not sure that he should approve of it if it did . But , meantime , he had not told her how the girls had enjoyed riding on the Campagna , and how they had followed the hunt one day , and not a bone broken ! Nor how they had got to know their way about Rome like a book and how -- really , the subject was quite inexhaustible ! The sun was shining like mad upon the palaces opposite , and as he looked across the flower-boxes in the window , he felt quite in sympathy with this high noon of light and color . A steamboat shrieked beneath the window , and the discordant sound hardly seemed an intrusion . And then , suddenly , taking him quite at unawares , a firm step resounded upon the hard , smooth conglomerate of the broad passage-way , and -- `` Here is Geof ! '' his mother announced .