The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

II

The events of Raymond Noel's life, after he left Rome that spring, were various. Some were pleasant, some unpleasant; several were quite unexpected. Their combinations and results kept him from returning to Italy the following winter, and the winter after that he spent in Egypt. When he again beheld the dome of St. Peter's he remembered that it lacked but a month of two full years since he had said good-bye to it; it was then April, and now it was March. He established himself in some pleasant rooms, looked about him, and then began to take up, one by one, the old threads of his Roman life—such, at least, as remained unbroken. He found a good many. Threads do not break in Rome. He had once said himself that the air was so soft and historic that nothing broke there—not even hearts. But this was only one of his little speeches. In reality he did not believe much in the breaking of hearts; he had seen them stretch so!

It may be said with truth that Noel had not thought of Miss Macks for months. This was because he had had other things to think of. He had sent her the books from Paris, with an accompanying note, a charming little note—which gave no address for reply. Since then his mind had been otherwise occupied. But as he never entirely forgot anything that had once interested him, even although but slightly (this was in reality a system of his; it gave him many holds on life, and kept stored up a large supply of resources ready for use when wanted), he came, after a while, on the canvas of his Roman impressions, to the figure of Miss Macks. When he came to it he went to see her; that is, he went to the street of the Hyacinth.

Of course, she might not be there; a hundred things might have happened to her. He could have hunted up Horace Jackson; but, on the whole, he rather preferred to see the girl herself first—that is, if she was there. Mrs. Lawrence, the only person among his acquaintances who had known her, was not in Rome. Reaching the street of the Hyacinth, he interrogated the old woman who acted as portress at the lower door, keeping up at the same time a small commerce in fritters; yes, the Americans were still on the fourth floor. He ascended the dark stairway. The confiding little "Ettie" card was no longer upon the door. In its place was a small framed sign: "Miss Macks' School."

This told a story!

However, he rang. It was the same shrill, ill-tempered little bell, and when the door opened it was Miss Macks herself who opened it. She was much changed.

The parlor had been turned into a school-room—at present empty of pupils. But even as a school-room it was more attractive than it had been before. He took a seat, and spoke the usual phrases of a renewal of acquaintance with his accustomed ease and courtesy; Miss Macks responded briefly. She said that her mother was not very well; she herself quite well. No, they had not left Italy, nor indeed the neighborhood of Rome; they had been a while at Albano.

The expression of her face had greatly altered. The old direct, wide glance was gone; gone also what he had called her over-confidence; she looked much older. On the other hand, there was more grace in her bearing, more comprehension of life in her voice and eyes. She was dressed as plainly as before; but everything, including the arrangement of her hair, was in the prevalent style.

She did not speak of her school, and therefore he did not. But after a while he asked how the painting came on. Her face changed a little; but it was more in the direction of a greater calm than hesitation or emotion.

"I am not painting now," she answered.

"You have given it up temporarily?"

"Permanently."

"Ah—isn't that rather a pity?"

She looked at him, and a gleam of scorn filtered into the glance.

"You know it is not a pity," she said.

He was a little disgusted at the scorn. Of course, the only ground for him to take was the ground upon which she stood when he last saw her; at that time she proposed to pass her life in painting, and it was but good manners for him to accept her intentions as she had presented them.

"I never assumed to be a judge, you know," he answered. "When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, painting was, you remember, your cherished occupation!"

"When you last had the pleasure of seeing me, Mr. Noel," said Miss Macks, still with unmoved calm, "I was a fool."

Did she wish to go into the subject at length? Or was that merely an exclamation?

"When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you were taking lessons of Mr. Jackson," he said, to give a practical turn to the conversation. "Is he still here? How is he?"

"He is very well, now. He is dead."

(She was going to be dramatic then, in any case.)

He expressed his regret, and it was a sincere one; he had always liked and respected the honest, morose Englishman. He asked a question or two. Miss Macks replied that he had died here in the street of the Hyacinth—in the next room. He had fallen ill during the autumn following Noel's departure, and when his illness grew serious, they—her mother and herself—had persuaded him to come to them. He had lived a month longer, and died peacefully on Christmas Eve.

"He was one of the most honest men I ever knew," said Noel. Then, as she did not reply, he ventured this: "That was the reason I recommended him when you asked me to select a teacher for you."

"Your plan was made useless by an unfortunate circumstance," she answered, with an evident effort.

"A circumstance?"

"Yes; he fell in love with me. If I did not consider his pure, deep, and devoted affection the greatest honor of my life I would not mention it. I tell you because it will explain to you his course."

"Yes, it explains," said Noel. As he spoke there came across him a realization of the whole of the strength of the love such a man as Horace Jackson would feel, and the way in which it would influence him. Of course, he saw to the full the imperfection of her work, the utter lack of the artist's conception, the artist's eye and touch; but probably he had loved her from the beginning, and had gone on hoping to win her love in return. She was not removed from him by any distance; she was young, but she was also poor, friendless, and alone. When she was his wife he would tell her the truth, and in the greatness of his love the revelation would be naught. "He was a good man," he said. "He was always lonely. I am glad that at last he was with your mother and you."

"His goodness was simply unbounded. If he had lived he would have remained always a faithful, kind, and respectful son to my dear mother. That, of course, would have been everything to me." She said this quietly, yet her tone seemed to hold intention.

For a moment he thought that perhaps she had married the Englishman, and was now his widow. The sign on the door bore her maiden name, but that might have been an earlier venture.

"Had you opened your school at that time?" he asked. "I may speak of it, since, of course, I saw the sign upon the door."

"Not until two months later; I had the sign made then. But it was of little use; day-schools do not prosper in Rome; they are not the custom. I have a small class twice a week, but I live by going out as day-governess. I have a number of pupils of that kind; I have been very successful. The old Roman families have a fancy for English-speaking governesses, you know. Last summer I was with the Princess C——, at Albano; her children are my pupils."

"Her villa is a delightful one," said Noel; "you must have enjoyed that."

"I don't know that I enjoyed, but I learned. I have learned a great deal in many ways since I saw you last, Mr. Noel. I have grown very old."

"As you were especially young when you saw me last it does not matter much," he answered, smiling.

"Yes, I was especially young." She looked at him soberly. "I do not feel bitterly towards you," she continued. "Strange! I thought I should. But now that I see you in person it comes over me that, probably, you did not intend to deceive me; that not only you tried to set me right by selecting Mr. Jackson as my teacher, but again you tried when you sent me those books. It was not much to do! But knowing the world as I now know it, I see that it was all that could have been expected. At first, however, I did not see this. After I went to Mr. Bellot, and, later, to Mr. Salviati, there were months when I felt very bitterly towards you. My hopes were false ones, and had been so from the beginning; you knew that they were, yet you did not set me right."

"I might have done more than I did," answered Noel. "I have a habit of not assuming responsibility; I suppose I have grown selfish. But if you went to Bellot, then it was not Jackson who told you?"

"He intimated something when he asked me to marry him; after that his illness came on, and we did not speak of it again. But I did not believe him. I was very obstinate. I went to Mr. Bellot the 1st of January; I wished him to take me as pupil. In answer he told me that I had not a particle of talent; that all my work was insufferably bad; that I better throw away my brushes and take in sewing."

"Bellot is always a brute!" said Noel.

"If he told the truth brutally, it was still the truth; and it was the truth I needed. But even then I was not convinced, and I went to Mr. Salviati. He was more gentle; he explained to me my lacks; but his judgment was the same. I came home; it was the 10th of January, a beautiful Roman winter day. I left my pictures, went over to St. Peter's, and walked there under its bright mosaics all the afternoon. The next day I had advertisements of a day-school placed at the bankers' and in the newspapers. I thought that I could teach better than I could sew." All this she said with perfect calm.

"I greatly admire your bravery, Miss Macks. Permit me to add that I admire, even more, the clear, strong, good sense which has carried you through."

"I had my mother to think of; my—good sense might not have been so faithful otherwise."

"You do not think of returning to America?"

"Probably not; I doubt if my mother could bear the voyage now. We have no one to call us back but my brother, and he has not been with us for years, and would not be if we should return; he lives in California. We sold the farm, too, before we came. No; for the present, at least, it is better for us to remain here."

"There is one more question I should like to ask," said Noel, later. "But I have no possible right to do so."

"I will give you the right. When I remember the things I asked you to do for me, the demands I made upon your time, I can well answer a few questions in return. I was a miracle of ignorance."

"I always did you justice in those respects, Miss Macks; all that I understood at once. My question refers to Horace Jackson: I see you appreciated his worth—which was rare—yet you would not marry him."

"I did not love him."

"Did any of his relatives come out from England?" he said, after a moment of silence.

"After his death a cousin came."

"As heir to what was left?"

"Yes."

"He should have left it to you."

"He wished to do so. Of course, I would not accept it."

"I thank you for answering. My curiosity was not an idle one." He paused. "If you will permit me to express it, your course has been very brave and true. I greatly admire it."

"You are kind," said Miss Macks.

There was not in her voice any indication of sarcasm. Yet the fact that he immediately thought of it made him suspect that it was there. He took leave soon afterwards. He was smarting a little under the sarcasm he had divined, and, as he was, it was like him to request permission to come again.

For Raymond Noel lived up with a good deal of determination to his own standard of what was manly; if his standard was not set on any very fine elevation of self-sacrifice or heroism, it was at least firmly established where it did stand, and he kept himself fairly near it. If Miss Macks was sarcastic, he had been at fault somewhere; he would try to atone.

He saw her four times during the five weeks of his stay in Rome; upon three other occasions when he went to the street of the Hyacinth she was not at home. The third week in April he decided to go to Venice. Before going he asked if there was not something he could do for her; but she said there was nothing, and he himself could think of nothing. She was well established in her new life and occupations, and needed nothing—at least, nothing that he could bestow.

The next winter he came back to Rome early in the season, before Christmas. By chance one of the first persons he encountered was Mrs. Lawrence. She began immediately to tell him a piece of American news, in which he, as an American, would of course be interested; the news was that "the brother of the Princess C—— —that is Count L——, you know—is determined to marry Ettie Macks. You remember her, don't you? I introduced you to her at the Dudley reception, three years ago."

Noel thought that probably he remembered her better than Mrs. Lawrence did, seeing that that lady had never troubled herself to enter the street of the Hyacinth. But he did her injustice. Mrs. Lawrence had troubled herself—lately.

"It seems that she has been out at Albano for two summers, as governess to his sister's children; it was there that he saw her. He has announced his determination to the family, and they are immensely disturbed and frightened; they had it all arranged for him to marry a second cousin down at Naples, who is rich—these Italians are so worldly, you know! But he is very determined, they say, and will do as he pleases in spite of them. He hasn't much money, but of course it's a great match for Ettie Macks. She will be a countess, and now, I suppose, more American girls will come over than ever before! Of course, as soon as I heard of it, I went to see her. I felt that she would need advice about a hundred things. In the beginning she brought a letter of introduction to me from a dear cousin of mine, and, naturally, she would rely upon me as her chief friend now. She is very much improved. She was rather silent; but, of course, I shall go again. The count is willing to take the mother, too, and that, under the circumstances, is not a small matter; she is a good deal to take. Until the other day I had not seen Mrs. Spurr! However, I suppose that her deficiencies are not apparent in a language she cannot speak. If her daughter would only insist upon her dressing in black! But the old lady told me herself, in the most cheerful way, that she liked 'a sprinkling of color.' And at the moment, I assure you, she had on five different shades of red!"

Noel had intended to present himself immediately at the street of the Hyacinth; but a little attack of illness kept him in for a while, and ten days had passed before he went up the dark stairway. The maid said that Miss Macks was at home; presently she came in. They had ten minutes of conversation upon ordinary topics, and then he took up the especial one.

"I am told that you are soon to be a countess," he said, "and I have come to give you my best good wishes. My congratulations I reserve for Count L——, with whom I have a slight acquaintance; he is, in my opinion, a very fortunate man."

"Yes, I think he is fortunate; fortunate in my refusal. I shall not marry Count L——."

"He is not a bad fellow."

"Isn't your praise somewhat faint?" This time the sarcasm was visible.

"Oh, I am by no means his advocate! All I meant was that, as these modern Romans go, he was not among the worst. Of course I should have expressed myself very differently if you had said you were to marry him."

"Yes; you would then have honored me with your finest compliments."

He did not deny this.

"Shall you continue to live in Rome?" he asked.

"Certainly. I shall have more pupils and patronage now than I know what to do with; the whole family connection is deeply obliged to me."

They talked awhile longer.

"We have always been unusually frank with each other, Miss Macks," he said, towards the end of his visit. "We have never stopped at conventionalities. I wonder if you will tell me why you refused him?"

"You are too curious. As to frankness, I have been frank with you; not you with me. And there was no conventionality, simply because I did not know what it was."

"I believe you are in love with some one in America," he said, laughing.

"Perhaps I am," answered Miss Macks. She had certainly gained greatly in self-possession during the past year.

He saw her quite frequently after this. Her life was no longer solitary. As she had said, she was overwhelmed with pupils and patronage from the friends of the Princess C——; in addition, the American girl who had refused a fairly-indorsed and well-appearing count was now something of a celebrity among the American visitors in Rome. That they knew of her refusal was not her fault; the relatives of Count L—— had announced their objections as loud and widely as the count had announced his determination. Apparently neither side had thought of a non-acceptance. Cards, not a few, were sent to the street of the Hyacinth; some persons even climbed the five flights of stairs. Mrs. Spurr saw a good deal of company—and enjoyed it.

Noel was very fond of riding; when in Rome he always rode on the Campagna. He had acted as escort to various ladies, and one day he invited Miss Macks to accompany him—that is, if she were fond of riding. She had ridden in America, and enjoyed it; she would like to go once, if he would not be troubled by an improvised habit. They went once. Then a second time, an interval of three weeks between. Then, after a while, a third time.

Upon this occasion an accident happened, the first of Noel's life; his horse became frightened, and, skilled rider though he was, he was thrown. He was dragged, too, for a short distance. His head came against some stones, and he lost consciousness. When it came back it did not come wholly. He seemed to himself to be far away, and the girl who was weeping and calling his name to be upon the other side of a wide space like an ocean, over which, without volition of his own, he was being slowly wafted. As he came nearer, still slowly, he perceived that in some mysterious way she was holding in her arms something that seemed to be himself, although he had not yet reached her. Then, gradually, spirit and body were reunited, he heard what she was saying, and felt her touch. Even then it was only after several minutes that he was able to move and unclose his heavy eyes.

When she saw that he was not dead, her wild grief was at once merged in the thought of saving him. She had jumped from her horse, she knew not how; but he had not strayed far; a shepherd had seen him, and was now coming towards them. He signalled to another, and the two carried Noel to a house which was not far distant. A messenger was sent to the city; aid came, and before night Noel was in his own rooms at the head of the Via Sistina, near the Spanish steps.

His injuries proved to be not serious; he had lost consciousness from the shock, and this, with his pallor and the blood from the cuts made by the stones, had given him the look of death. The cuts, however, were not deep; the effect of the shock passed away. He kept his bed for a week under his physician's advice; he had a good deal of time to think during that week. Later his friends were admitted. As has been said before, Noel was a favorite in Rome, and he had friends not a few. Those who could not come in person sent little notes and baskets of flowers. Among these Miss Macks was not numbered. But then she was not fashionable.

At the end of two weeks the patient was allowed to go out. He took a short walk to try his strength, and, finding that it held out well, he went to the street of the Hyacinth.

Miss Macks was at home. She was "so glad" to see him out again; and was he "really strong enough;" and he "should be very prudent for a while;" and so forth and so forth. She talked more than usual, and, for her, quite rapidly.

He let her go on for a time. Then he took the conversation into his own hands. With few preliminaries, and with much feeling in his voice and eyes, he asked her to be his wife.

She was overwhelmed with astonishment; she turned very white, and did not answer. He thought she was going to burst into tears. But she did not; she only sat gazing at him, while her lips trembled. He urged his point; he spoke strongly.

"You are worth a hundred of me," he said. "You are true and sincere; I am a dilettante in everything. But, dilettante as I am, in one way I have always appreciated you, and, lately, all other ways have become merged in that one. I am much in earnest; I know what I am doing; I have thought of it searchingly and seriously, and I beg you to say yes."

He paused. Still she did not speak.

"Of course I do not ask you to separate yourself from your mother," he went on, his eyes dropping for the moment to the brim of his hat, which he held in his hand; "I shall be glad if she will always make her home with us."

Then she did speak. And as her words came forth, the red rose in her face until it was deeply colored.

"With what an effort you said that! But you will not be tried. One gray hair in my mother's head is worth more to me, Mr. Noel, than anything you can offer."

"I knew before I began that this would be the point of trouble between us, Faith," he answered. "I can only assure you that she will find in me always a most respectful son."

"And when you were thinking so searchingly and seriously, it was this that you thought of—whether you could endure her! Do you suppose that I do not see the effort? Do you suppose I would ever place my mother in such a position? Do you suppose that you are of any consequence beside her, or that anything in this world weighs in my mind for one moment compared with her happiness?"

"We can make her happy; I suppose that. And I suppose another thing, and that is that we could be very happy ourselves if we were married."

"The Western girl, the girl from Tuscolee! The girl who thought she could paint, and could not! The girl who knew so little of social rules that she made a fool of herself every time she saw you!"

"All this is of no consequence, since it is the girl I love," answered Noel.

"You do not. It is a lie. Oh, of course, a very unselfish and noble one; but a lie, all the same. You have thought of it seriously and searchingly? Yes, but only for the last fourteen days! I understand it all now. At first I did not, I was confused; but now I see the whole. You were not unconscious out there on the Campagna; you heard what I said when I thought you were dying, or dead. And so you come—come very generously and self-sacrificingly, I acknowledge that—and ask me to be your wife." She rose; her eyes were brilliant as she faced him. "I might tell you that it was only the excitement, that I did not know or mean what I was saying; I might tell you that I did not know that I had said anything. But I am not afraid. I will not, like you, tell a lie, even for a good purpose. I did love you; there, you have it! I have loved you for a long time, to my sorrow and shame. For I do not respect you or admire you; you have been completely spoiled, and will always remain so. I shall make it the one purpose of my life from this moment to overcome the feeling I have had for you; and I shall succeed. Nothing could make me marry you, though you should ask me a thousand times."

"I shall ask but once," said Noel. He had risen also; and, as he did, he remembered the time when they had stood in the same place and position, facing each other, and she had told him that she was at his feet. "I did hear what you said. And it is of that I have been seriously thinking during the days of my confinement to the house. It is also true that it is what you said which has brought me here to-day. But the reason is that it has become precious to me—this knowledge that you love me. As I said before, in one way I have always done you justice, and it is that way which makes me realize to the full now what such a love as yours would be to me. If it is true that I am spoiled, as you say I am, a love like yours would make me better, if anything can." He paused. "I have not said much about my own feelings," he added; "I know you will not credit me with having any. But I think I have. I think that I love you."

"It is of little moment to me whether you do or not."

"You are making a mistake," he said, after a pause, during which their eyes had met in silence.

"The mistake would be to consent."

She had now recovered her self-possession. She even smiled a little.

"Imagine Mr. Raymond Noel in the street of the Hyacinth!" she said.

"Ah, I should hardly wish to live here; and my wife would naturally be with me."

"I hope so. And I hope she will be very charming and obedient and sweet." Then she dropped her sarcasms, and held out her hand in farewell. "There is no use in prolonging this, Mr. Noel. Do not think, however, that I do not appreciate your action; I do appreciate it. I said that I did not respect you, and I have not until now; but now I do. You will understand, of course, that I would rather not see you again, and refrain from seeking me. Go your way, and forget me; you can do so now with a clear conscience, for you have behaved well."

"It is not very likely that I shall forget you," answered Noel, "although I go my way. I see you are firmly resolved. For the present, therefore, all I can do is to go."

They shook hands, and he left her. As he passed through the small hall on his way to the outer door he met Mrs. Spurr; she was attired as opulently, in respect to colors, as ever, and she returned his greeting with much cordiality. He glanced back; Miss Macks had witnessed the meeting through the parlor door. Her color had faded; she looked sad and pale.

She kept her word; she did not see him again. If he went to the street of the Hyacinth, as he did two or three times, the little maid presented him with the Italian equivalent of "begs to be excused," which was evidently a standing order. If he wrote to her, as he did more than two or three times, she returned what he wrote, not unread, but without answer. He thought perhaps he should meet her, and was at some pains to find out her various engagements. But all was in vain; the days passed, and she remained invisible. Towards the last of May he left Rome. After leaving, he continued to write to her, but he gave no address for reply; she would now be obliged either to burn his letters or keep them, since she could no longer send them back. They could not have been called love-letters; they were friendly epistles, not long—pleasant, easy, sometimes amusing, like his own conversation. They came once a week. In addition he sent new books, and occasionally some other small remembrance.

In early September of that year there came to the street of the Hyacinth a letter from America. It was from one of Mrs. Spurr's old neighbors at Tuscolee, and she wrote to say that John Macks had come home—had come home broken in health and spirits, and, as he himself said, to die. He did not wish his mother to know; she could not come to him, and it would only distress her. He had money enough for the short time that was left him, and when she heard it would be only that he had passed away; he had passed from her life in reality years before. In this John Macks was sincere. He had been a ne'er-do-well, a rolling stone; he had not been a dutiful son. The only good that could be said of him, as far as his mother was concerned, was contained in the fact that he had not made demands upon her small purse since the sum he took from her when he first went away. He had written to her at intervals, briefly. His last letter had come eight months before.

But the Tuscolee neighbor was a mother herself, and, doing as she would be done by, she wrote to Rome. When her letter came Mrs. Spurr was overwhelmed with grief; but she was also stirred to an energy and determination which she had never shown before. For the first time in years she took the leadership, put her daughter decisively back into a subordinate place, and assumed the control. She would go to America. She must see her boy (the dearest child of the two, as the prodigal always is) again. But even while she was planning her journey illness seized her—her old rheumatic troubles, only more serious than before; it was plain that she could not go. She then required that her daughter should go in her place—go and bring her boy to Rome; this soft Italian air would give new life to his lungs. Oh, she should not die! Ettie need not be afraid of that. She would live for years just to get one look at him! And so it ended in the daughter's departure, an efficient nurse being left in charge; the physician said that although Mrs. Spurr would probably be crippled, she was in no danger otherwise.

Miss Macks left Rome on the 15th of September. On the 2d of December she again beheld the dome of St. Peter's rising in the blue sky. She saw it alone. John Macks had lived three weeks after her arrival at Tuscolee, and those three weeks were the calmest and the happiest of his unsuccessful—unworthy it may be—but also bitterly unhappy life. His sister did not judge him. She kissed him good-bye as he lost consciousness, and soon afterwards closed his eyes tenderly, with tears in her own. Although he was her brother, she had never known him; he went away when she was a child. She sat beside him a long time after he was dead, watching the strange, youthful peace come back to his worn face.

When she reached the street of the Hyacinth a carriage was before the door; carriages of that sort were not often required by the dwellers on the floors below their own, and she was rather surprised. She had heard from her mother in London, the nurse acting as amanuensis; at that time Mrs. Spurr was comfortable, although still confined to her bed most of the day. As she was paying her driver she heard steps on the stairway within. Then she beheld this: The nurse, carrying a pillow and shawls; next, her mother, in an invalid-chair, borne by two men; and last, Raymond Noel.

When Mrs. Spurr saw her daughter she began to cry. She had not expected her until the next day. Her emotion was so great that the drive was given up, and she was carried back to her room. Noel did not follow her; he shook hands with the new-comer, said that he would not detain her, and then, lifting his hat, he stepped into the carriage which was waiting and was driven away.

For two days Mrs. Spurr wished for nothing but to hear, over and over again, every detail of her boy's last hours. Then the excitement and renewed grief made her dangerously ill. After ten days she began to improve; but two weeks passed before she came back to the present sufficiently to describe to her daughter all "Mr. No-ul's kind attentions." He had returned to Rome the first of October, and had come at once to the street of the Hyacinth. Learning what had happened, he had devoted himself to her "most as if he was my real son, Ettie, I do declare! Of course, he couldn't never be like my own darling boy," continued the poor mother, overlooking entirely, with a mother's sublime forgetfulness, the small amount of devotion her boy had ever bestowed; "but he's just done everything he could, and there's no denying that."

"He has not been mentioned in your letters, mother."

"Well, child, I just told Mrs. Bowler not to. For he said himself, frankly, that you might not like it; but that he'd make his peace with you when you come back. I let him have his way about it, and I have enjoyed seeing him. He's the only person I've seen but Mrs. Bowler and the doctor, and I'm mortal tired of both."

During Mrs. Spurr's second illness Noel had not come in person to the street of the Hyacinth; he had sent to inquire, and fruits and flowers came in his name. Miss Macks learned that these had come from the beginning.

When three weeks had passed Mrs. Spurr was back in her former place as regarded health. One of her first requests was to be taken out to drive; during her daughter's absence Mr. Noel had taken her five times, and she had greatly enjoyed the change. It was not so simple a matter for the daughter as it had been for Mr. Noel; her purse was almost empty; the long journeys and her mother's illness had exhausted her store. Still she did it. Mrs. Spurr wished to go to the Pincio. Her daughter thought the crowd there would be an objection.

"It didn't tire me one bit when Mr. No-ul took me," said Mrs. Spurr, in an aggrieved tone; "and we went there every single time—just as soon as he found out that I liked it. What a lot of folks he does know, to be sure! They kept him a-bowing every minute."

The day after this drive Mr. Noel came to the street of the Hyacinth. He saw Miss Macks. Her manner was quiet, a little distant; but she thanked him, with careful acknowledgment of every item, for his kind attentions to her mother. He said little. After learning that Mrs. Spurr was much better he spoke of her own health.

"You have had two long, fatiguing journeys, and you have been acting as nurse; it would be well for you to give yourself entire rest for several weeks at least."

She replied, coldly, that she was perfectly well, and turned the conversation to subjects less personal. He did not stay long. As he rose to take leave, he said:

"You will let me come again, I hope? You will not repeat the 'not at home' of last spring?"

"I would really much rather not see you, Mr. Noel," she answered, after hesitating.

"I am sorry. But of course I must submit." Then he went away.

Miss Macks now resumed her burdens. She was obliged to take more pupils than she had ever accepted before, and to work harder. She had not only to support their little household, but there were now debts to pay. She was out almost the whole of every day.

After she had entered upon her winter's work Raymond Noel began to come again to the street of the Hyacinth. But he did not come to see her; his visits were to her mother. He came two or three times a week, and always during the hours when the daughter was absent. He sat and talked to Mrs. Spurr, or rather listened to her, in a way that greatly cheered that lady's monotonous days. She told him her whole history; she minutely described Tuscolee and its society; and, finally, he heard the whole story of "John." In addition, he sent her various little delicacies, taking pains to find something she had not had.

Miss Macks would have put an end to this if she had known how. But certainly Mr. Noel was not troubling her, and Mrs. Spurr resented any attempt at interference.

"I don't see why you should object, Ettie. He seems to like to come, and there's but few pleasures left to me, I'm sure! You oughtn't to grudge them!"

In this way two months passed, Noel continuing his visits, and Miss Macks continuing her lessons. She was working very hard. She now looked not only pale, but much worn. Count L——, who had been long absent, returned to Rome about this time. He saw her one day, although she did not see him. The result of this vision of her was that he went down to Naples, and, before long, the desirable second cousin with the fortune was the sister of the Princess C——.

One afternoon in March Miss Macks was coming home from the broad, new, tiresome piazza Indipendenza; the distance was long, and she walked with weariness. As she drew near the dome of the Pantheon she met Raymond Noel. He stopped, turned, and accompanied her homeward. She had three books.

"Give them to me," he said, briefly, taking them from her.

"Do you know what I have heard to-day?" he went on. "They are going to tear down your street of the Hyacinth. The Government has at last awakened to the shame of allowing all those modern accretions to disfigure longer the magnificent old Pagan temple. All the streets in the rear, up to a certain point, are to be destroyed. And the street of the Hyacinth goes first. You will be driven out."

"I presume we can find another like it."

He went on talking about the Pantheon until they entered the doomed street; it was as obstinately narrow and dark as ever. Then he dropped his Pagan temple.

"How much longer are you going to treat me in this way, Faith?" he said. "You make me very unhappy. You are wearing yourself out, and it troubles me greatly. If you should fall ill I think that would be the end. I should then take matters into my own hands, and I don't believe you would be able to keep me off. But why should we wait for illness? It is too great a risk."

They were approaching her door. She said nothing, only hastened her steps.

"I have been doing my best to convince you, without annoying you, that you were mistaken about me. And the reason I have been doing it is that I am convinced myself. If I was not entirely sure last spring that I loved you, I certainly am sure now. I spent the summer thinking of it. I know now, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I love you above all and everything. There is no 'duty' or 'generosity' in this, but simply my own feelings. I could perfectly well have let the matter drop; you gave me every opportunity to do so. That I have not done it should show you—a good deal. For I am not of the stuff of which heroes are made. I should not be here unless I wanted to; my motive is the selfish one of my own happiness."

They had entered the dark hallway.

"Do you remember the morning when you stood here, with two tears in your eyes, saying 'Never mind; you will come another time'?" (Here the cobbler came down the stairs.) "Why not let the demolition of the street of the Hyacinth be the crisis of our fate?" he went on, returning the cobbler's bow. (Here the cobbler departed.) "If you refuse, I shall not give you up; I shall go on in the same way. But—haven't I been tried long enough?"

"You have not," she answered. "But, unless you will leave Rome, and—me, I cannot bear it longer."

It was a great downfall, of course; Noel always maintained that it was.

"But the heights upon which you had placed yourself, my dear, were too superhuman," he said, excusingly.

The street of the Hyacinth experienced a great downfall, also. During the summer it was demolished.

Before its demolition Mrs. Lawrence, after three long breaths of astonishment, had come to offer her congratulations—in a new direction this time.

"It is the most fortunate thing in the world," she said to everybody, "that Mrs. Spurr is now confined to her bed for life, and is obliged to wear mourning."

But Mrs. Spurr is not confined to her bed; she drives out with her daughter whenever the weather is favorable. She wears black, but is now beginning to vary it with purple and lavender.

A CHRISTMAS PARTY

IN 188- the American Consul at Venice was occupying the second story of an old palace on the Grand Canal. It was the story which is called by Italians the piano nobile, or noble floor. Beneath this piano nobile there is a large low ground, or rather water, floor, whose stone pavement, only slightly above the level of the canal outside, is always damp and often wet. At the time of the Consul's residence this water-floor was held by another tenant, a dealer in antiquities, who had partitioned off a shallow space across its broad front for a show-room. As this dealer had the ground-floor, he possessed, of course, the principal entrance of the palace, with its broad marble steps descending into the rippling wavelets of the splendid azure street outside, and with the tall, slender poles, irregularly placed in the water, which bore testimony to the aristocracy of the venerable pile they guarded. One could say that these blue wands, ornamented with heraldic devices, were like the spears of knights; this is what Miss Senter said. Or one could notice their strong resemblance to barbers' poles; and this was what Peter Senter always mentioned.

Peter Senter was the American Consul, and his sister Barbara was the Consuless; for she kept house for her brother, who was a bachelor. And she not only kept house for him, but she assisted him in other ways, owing to her knowledge of Italian. The Consul, a man of fifty-seven, spoke only the language of his native place—Rochester, New York. That he could not understand the speech (gibberish, he called it) of the people with whom he was supposed to hold official relations did not disturb him; he thought it patriotic not to understand. There was a vice-consul, an Italian, who could attend to the business matters; and as for the rest, wasn't Barbara there—Barbara, who could chatter not only in Italian, but in French and German also, with true feminine glibness? (For Peter, in his heart, thought it unmasculine to have a polyglot tongue.) He knew how well his sister could speak, because he had paid her bills during the six years of her education abroad. These bills had been large; of course, therefore, the knowledge must be large as well.

Miss Senter was always chronically annoyed that she and her brother did not possess the state entrance. As the palace was at present divided, the tenants of the noble floor descended by an outside stairway to a large inner court, and from this court opened the second water-door. Their staircase was a graceful construction of white marble, and the court, with the blue sky above, one or two fretted balconies, and a sculptured marble well-curb in the centre, was highly picturesque. But this did not reconcile the American lady to the fact that their door was at the side of the palace; she thought that by right the gondola of the Consul should lie among the heraldic poles on the Grand Canal. But, in spite of right, nothing could be done; the antiquity-dealer held his premises on a long lease. Miss Senter, therefore, disliked the dealer.

Her dislike, however, had not prevented her from paying a visit to his establishment soon after she had taken possession of the high-ceilinged rooms above. For she was curious about the old palace, and wished to see every inch of it; if there had been cellars, she would have gone down to inspect them, and she was fully determined to walk "all over the roof." The dealer's name was Pelham—"Z. Pelham" was inscribed on his sign. How he came by this English title no one but himself could have told. He was supposed to be either a Pole or an Armenian, and he spoke many languages with equal fluency and incorrectness. He appeared to have feeble health, and he always wore large arctic over-shoes; he was short and thin, and the most noticeable expression of his plain, small face was resignation. Z. Pelham conducted the Consuless through the dusky space behind his show-room, a vast, low, open hall with massive squat columns and arches, and the skeletons of two old gondolas decaying in a corner. At the back he opened a small door, and pointed out a flight of stone steps going up steeply in a spiral, enclosed in a circular shaft like a round tower. "It leads to the attic floor. Her Excellency wishes to mount?" he inquired, patiently. For, owing to the wares in which he dealt, he had had a large acquaintance with eccentric characters of all nations.

"Certainly," replied Miss Senter. "Carmela, you can stay below, if you like," she said to the servant who accompanied her.

But no; Carmela also wished to mount. Z. Pelham preceded them, therefore, carrying his small oil-lamp. They went slowly, for the steps were narrow, the spiral sharp. The attic, when they reached it, was a queer, ghostly place; but there was a skylight with a ladder, and the Consuless carried out her intention of traversing the roof, while Mr. Pelham waited calmly, seated on the open scuttle door. Carmela followed her mistress. She gave little cries of admiration; there never were such wonderful ladies anywhere as those of America, she declared. On the way down, the stairs were so much like a corkscrew that Miss Senter, feeling dizzy, was obliged to pause for a moment where there was a landing. "Isn't there a secret chamber?" she demanded of the dealer.

Z. Pelham shook his head. "I have not one found."

"Try again," said Miss Senter, laughing. "I'll make it worth your while, Mr. Pelham."

Z. Pelham surveyed the walls, as if to see where he could have one built. His eye passed over a crack, and, raising his lamp, he showed it to the Consuless. "One time was there a door, opening into the rooms of her Excellency. But it opens not ever now; it is covered on inside."

"Oh, that isn't a secret chamber," answered Miss Senter; "we have doors that have been shut up at home. What I want is something mysterious—behind a picture, or a sliding panel."

Partly in return for this expedition to the roof, and partly because she had a liking for wood-carvings, Miss Senter purchased from Mr. Pelham, shortly afterwards, his best antique cabinet. It was eight feet high, and its whole surface was beautifully sculptured in odd designs, no two alike. Within were many ingenious receptacles, and, better than these, a concealed drawer. "You see I have my secret chamber, after all," said the Consuless, making a joke. And there was a best even to this better; for after the cabinet had been placed in her own room, Miss Senter discovered within it a second hiding-place, even more perfectly concealed than the first. This was delightful, and she confided to its care all her loose money. She thought with disgust of the ugly green safe, built into the wall of Peter's Rochester house, where she was obliged to keep her gold and silver when at home. Not only was Miss Senter's own room in the old palace handsomely furnished, but all the others belonging to the apartment were rich in beautiful things. The Consuless had used her own taste, which was great, and her brother's fortune, which was greater, deferring to him only on one point—namely, warmth. In Peter's mind the temperature of his Rochester house remained a fixed standard, and his sister therefore provided in every room a place for a generous open fire, while in the great drawing-room, in addition to this fire, two large white Vienna stoves, like monuments, were set up, hidden behind screens. As this salon was eighty feet long and thirty feet high, it required all this if it was to be used—used by Peter, at least—in December, January, and February; for the Venetian winter, though short, is often sharp and raw.

On Christmas Eve of their third year in Venice this drawing-room was lighted for a party. At one end, concealed by a curtain, stood a Christmas-tree; for there were thirty children among their invited guests, who would number in all over fifty. After the tree had bestowed its fruit the children were to have a dance, and an odd little projection like a very narrow balcony high on the wall was to be occupied by five musicians. These musicians would have been much more comfortable below. But Miss Senter was sure that this shelf was intended for musicians; her musicians, therefore, were to sit there, though their knees would be well squeezed between the wall and the balustrade. Fifteen minutes before the appointed hour, which was an early one on account of the children, the Consuless appeared. She found her brother standing before the fire, surveying the room, with his hands behind him.

"Doesn't it look pretty?" said the sister, with pride; for she had a great faith in all her pots and pans, carvings and tapestries. Any one, however, could have had faith in the chandeliers of Venetian glass, from which came the soft radiance of hundreds of wax candles, lighting up the ancient gilding of the ceiling.

"Well, Barly, you know that personally I don't care much for all these second-hand articles you have collected," replied Peter. "And you haven't got the room very warm, after all—only 60°. However, I can stand it if the supper is all right—plenty of it, and the hot things really hot; not lukewarm, you know."

"We can trust Giorgio. But I'll go and have a final word with him, if you like," answered Miss Senter, crossing the beautiful salon, her train sweeping over the floor behind her. The Consuless was no longer young (the days when Peter had paid those school bills were now far distant), and she had never been handsome. But she was tall and slender, with pretty hands and feet, a pleasant expression in her blue eyes, and soft brown hair, now heavily tinged with silver. Her brother's use of "Barly" was a grief to her. She had tried to lead him towards the habit of calling her Barbe, the French form of Barbara, if nickname he must have. But he pronounced this Bob, and that was worse than the other.

On her way towards the kitchen the Consuless came upon Carmela. Carmela was the servant who had the general oversight of everything excepting the cooking. For Giorgio, the cook, allowed no interference in his department; in the kitchen he must be Cæsar or nothing. Carmela was not the house-keeper, for Miss Senter herself was the house-keeper. But the American would have found her task twenty times, fifty times more difficult if she had not had this skilful little deputy to carry out all her orders. Carmela was said to be middle-aged. But her short, slender figure was so erect, her little face so alert, her movements were so brisk, and her small black eyes so bright, that she seemed full of youthful fire; in fact, if one saw only her back, she looked younger than Assunta and Beppa, who were Venetian girls of twenty. Carmela was always attired in the French fashion, with tight corsets, a plain black dress fitting like a glove round her little waist, and short enough to show the neat shoes on her small feet; over this black dress there was a jaunty white apron with pockets, and upon her beautifully braided shining dark hair was perched a small spotless muslin cap. The younger servants asserted that the slight pink tint on the tidy little woman's cheeks was artificial. However that may have been, Carmela, as she stood, was the personification of trimness and activity. Untiring and energetic, she was a wonderful worker; Miss Senter, who had been much in Italy, appreciated her good-fortune in having secured for her Venetian house-keeping such a coadjutor as this. Carmela was scrupulously neat, and she was even more scrupulously honest, never abstracting so much as a pin; she economized for her mistress with her whole soul, and kept watch over every detail; she told the truth, she swept the corners, she dusted under everything; she worked conscientiously, in one way and another, all day long. Even Peter, who did not like foreign servants, liked Carmela; he said she was "so spry!"

"Is everything ready?" inquired Miss Senter, as she met her deputy.

"Yes, signorina, everything," answered Carmela, briskly. She was looking her very best and tightest, all black and white, with black silk stockings showing above her little high-heeled shoes. As she spoke she put her hands in their black lace mitts in the pockets of her apron, and, middle-aged though she was said to be, she looked at that moment like a smart French soubrette of the stage.

"I am going to the kitchen to have a word with Giorgio," said the Consuless, passing on.

"If the signorina permits, I carry the train," answered Carmela, lifting the satin folds from the floor. Thus they went on together, mistress and maid, through various rooms and corridors, until finally the kitchen was reached. It was a large, lofty place, brilliantly lighted, for Giorgio was old and needed all the radiance that could be obtained to aid his failing sight. He was a small man with a melancholy countenance. But this melancholy was an accident of expression; in reality, old Giorgio was cheerful and amiable, with a good deal of mild wit. He was the most skilful cook in Venice. But his health had failed some years before, and he had now very little strength; the Consul, who liked good dinners, paid him high wages, and gave him a young assistant.

"Well, Giorgio, all promises well, I trust?" said Miss Senter as she entered, her steps somewhat impeded by the tightness with which Carmela held back her train. "The Consul is particular about having the hot things really hot, and constantly renewed, as it is such a cold night. The three men from Florian's will have charge of the ices and the other cold things, and will do all that is necessary in the supper-room. But for the hot dishes we depend upon you."

Giorgio, who was dressed entirely in white, bowed and waved his hand. "Mademoiselle need give herself no uneasiness," he said in French. For Giorgio had learned his art in Paris, and whenever Carmela was present he invariably answered his mistress in the language of that Northern capital, even though her question had been couched in Italian; it was one of his ways—and he had but few—of standing up, as it were, against the indefatigable little deputy. For, clever though Carmela was, she had never been out of her native land, and could speak no tongue but her own.

"Are you feeling well, Giorgio?" continued Miss Senter. "I see that you look pale. I am afraid you have been doing too much. Where is Luigi?" (Luigi was the cook's assistant.)

"He has gone home; ten minutes ago. I let him go, as it is a festival. He is young, and we can be young but once. Che vuole! In addition, all was done."

"No," said Miss Senter, who was now speaking French also; "there is still much to do, and it was not wise to let Luigi go. You are certainly very tired, Giorgio."

"Let not mademoiselle think of it," said the old man, straightening himself a little.

"But I shall think of it," said Miss Senter, kindly. "Carmela," she continued, speaking now in Italian, "go to my room and get my case of cordials."

Carmela divined that the cordial was for the cook. "And the signorina's train?" she said. "Surely I cannot leave it on this dirty floor! Will not the signorina return to the drawing-room to take her cordial? Eh—it is not for her? It is for Giorgio? A man? A man to be faint like a girl? Ha, ha! it makes me laugh!"

"Go and get it," repeated Miss Senter, taking the train over her own arm. She knew that Carmela did not like the cook. Jealousy was the one fault the hard-working little creature possessed. "She has tried to make me dismiss Giorgio more than once," she said to her brother, in confidence; "but I always pretend not to see the feeling that influences her. It is only Giorgio she is jealous of; she gets on perfectly well with Luigi, and with Assunta and Beppa; while for Ercole she can never do enough. She is devoted to Ercole!"

Giorgio had not taken up the slur cast upon his immaculate floor. All he said was, "Comme elle est méchante!" with a shrug.

"Where is Ercole?" said Miss Senter, while she waited.

"He is dressing," answered Giorgio. "He makes himself beautiful for the occasion."

Ercole was the chief gondolier—a tall, athletic young man of thirty, handsome and clever. Miss Senter had chosen Ercole to assist her with the Christmas-tree. The second gondolier, Andrea, was to be stationed at the end of the little quay or riva down below, outside of their own water-door; for here on the small canal were the steps used by arriving and departing gondolas, and here also floated the handsome gondola of the Consul, with its American flag. The two gondoliers also had picturesque costumes of white (woollen in winter, linen in summer), with blue collars, blue stockings, blue caps, and long fringed red sashes, the combination representing the American national colors. To-night Ercole, having to appear in the drawing-room, was making a longer stay than usual before his little mirror.

Carmela returned with the cordial-case. "Ah, yes, our cook is pale—pale as a young virgin!" she commented, as Miss Senter, unlocking the box, poured into one of the little glasses it contained a generous portion of a restorative whose every drop was costly.

Giorgio, taking off the white linen cap which covered his gray hair, made a bow, and then drank the draught with much appreciation. "It is true that I am pale," he remarked, slyly, in Italian. "I might, perhaps, try some rouge?"

And then the Consuless, to avert war, hastily bore her deputy away.

Half an hour later the guests had arrived; they included all the Americans in Venice, with a sprinkling of English, Italians, and Russians. The grown people assembled in the drawing-room. And presently they heard singing. Through the anterooms came the children, entering with measured step, two and two, led by three little boys in Oriental costumes. These three boys were singing as follows:

"We three Kings of Orient are,

Bearing gifts we've travelled from far,

Field and fountain, moor and mountain,

Following yonder star."

Here, from the high top branch of the Christmas-tree which rose above the concealing curtain, blazed out a splendid star. And then all the procession took up the chorus, as they marched onward:

"Oh, star of wonder,

Star of might,

Star with royal

Beauty bright!"

Ercole, who was behind the curtain, now drew it aside, and there stood the tree, blazing with fairy-lamps and glittering ornaments, while beneath it was a mound composed entirely of toys. The children behaved well; they kept their ranks and repeated their carol, as they had been told to do, ranging themselves meanwhile in a half-circle before the tree.

"We three Kings of Orient are,"

chanted the three little kings a second time, though their eyes were fixed upon a magnificent box of soldiers, with tents and flags and cannon. The carol finished, Miss Senter, with the aid of her gondolier, distributed the toys and bonbons, and the room was filled with happy glee. When Ercole had detached the last package of sweets from the sparkling branches he disappeared. His next duty was to conduct the musicians up to their cage.

Miss Senter had allowed an hour for the inspection and trial of the toys before the dancing should begin. It was none too much, and the clamor was still great as this hour drew towards its close, so great that she herself was glad that the end was near. Looking up to see whether her musicians had assembled on their shelf, she perceived some one at the drawing-room door; it was Carmela, hiding herself modestly behind the portière, but at the same time unmistakably beckoning to her mistress as soon as she saw that she had caught her eye. Miss Senter went to the doorway.

"Will the signorina permit? A surprise of Ercole's," whispered Carmela, eagerly, standing on tiptoe to reach her mistress's ear. "He has dressed himself as a clown, and he is of a perfection! He has bells on his cap and his elbows, and if the signorina graciously allows, he will come in to amuse the children."

"A clown!" answered Miss Senter, hesitating. "I don't know; he ought to have told me."

"He has been dancing to show me. And oh! so beautifully, with bounds and leaps. He makes of himself also a statue," pursued Carmela.

"But I cannot have any buffoonery here, you know," said Miss Senter. "It would not do."

"Buffoonery! Surely the signorina knows that Ercole has the soul of a gentleman," whispered Carmela, reproachfully.

And it was true that Miss Senter had always thought that her chief gondolier possessed a great deal of natural refinement.

"Will the signorina step out for a moment and look at him?" pursued the deputy, her whisper now a little dejected. "If he is to be disappointed, poor fellow, may he at least have that pleasure?"

The idea of the gondolier's disappointment touched the amiable American. She turned her head and glanced into the drawing-room; all was going on gayly; no one had missed her. She slipped out under the portière, and followed Carmela to a room at the side. Here stood the gondolier. He wore the usual white dress and white mask of a clown, and, as the Consuless entered, he cut a splendid caper, ringing all his bells.

"I had no idea that you were such a skilful acrobat, Ercole," said his mistress.

Ercole turned a light somerset, gave a high jump, and came down in the attitude of the Mercury of John of Bologna.

"Why, you are really wonderful!" said Miss Senter, admiringly.

And now he was dancing with butterfly grace.

Miss Senter was won. "But if I let you come in, Ercole, I hope you will remember where you are?" she said, warningly. "Can you breathe quite at ease in that mask?"

The gondolier opened his grotesque painted lips a little to show that he could part them.

"Yes, I see. Now listen; in the drawing-room you must keep your eye on me, and if at any time you see me raise my hand—so—you must dance out of the room, Ercole. For the sign will mean that that is enough. But, dear me! there's one thing we haven't thought of; who is to see to the musicians up-stairs, and to go back and forth, telling them what to play?"

"I can do that," said Carmela, who was now all smiles. "Does the signorina wish me to take them up? They are all ready. They are waiting in the wood-room."

The wood-room was a remote store-room for fuel; it was detached from the rest of the apartment. "Why did you put them there?" inquired Miss Senter, astonished.

"They are musicians—yes; but who knows what else they may be? Thieves, perhaps!" said the deputy, shrewdly.

"Get them out immediately and take them up to the gallery," said Miss Senter. "And tell them to play something lively as a beginning."

Carmela, quick as usual, was gone before the words were ended.

"Now, Ercole, wait until you hear the music. Then come in," said the Consuless.

She returned to the drawing-room, making a motion with her hands as she advanced, which indicated that her guests were to move a little more towards the walls on each side, leaving the centre of the room free. And then, as the music burst out above, Ercole came bounding in. His dress was ordinary; Miss Senter was vexed anew that he had not told her of his plan, for if he had she could have provided a perfectly fresh costume. But no one noticed the costume; all eyes were fixed upon the gambols; for, keeping time to the music, he was advancing up the room, dancing, bounding, leaping, turning somersets, and every now and then striking an attitude with extraordinary skill. He was so light that his white linen feet made no sound, and so graceful that the fixed grin of his mask became annoying, clashing as it did with the beauty of his poses. This thought, however, came to the elders only; for to the children, fascinated, shouting with delight, the broad red smile was an important part.

"It's our gondolier," explained Miss Senter. "It's Ercole," she had whispered to her brother.

"You are always so fortunate in servants," said Lady Kay. "That little woman you have, too, Carmela—she is a miracle for an Italian."

Four times the clown made his pyrotechnic progress up and then down the long salon, never twice repeating the same pose, but always something new; then, after a final tremendous pigeon-wing, he let his white arms fall and his white head droop on his breast, as if saying that he was taking a moment for repose.

"Yes, yes; give him time to breathe, children," cried Peter. "I'll tell you what," he added to Sir William Kay; "I've never seen a better performance on any stage." And he slapped his leg in confirmation. The Consul was a man whose sole claim to beauty lay in the fact that he always looked extremely clean. He was meagre and small, with very short legs, but he was without consciousness of these deficiencies; in the presence of the Apollo Belvedere, for instance, it had never occurred to him to draw comparisons. Nature, however, will out in some way, and from childhood Peter Senter had had a profound admiration for feats of strength, vaulting, tumbling, and the like. "I'll tell you what," he repeated to Sir William; "I'll have the fellow exhibited; I'll start him at my own cost. Here all this time—two whole years—he has been our gondolier, Ercoly has, and nothing more; for I hadn't a suspicion that he had the least talent in this line. But, sir, he's a regular high-flier! And A Number One!"

Meanwhile the children were crowding closely round their clown, and peering up in order still to see his grin, which was now partly hidden, owing to his drooped head; the three Kings of Orient, especially, were very pressing in their attentions, pinching his legs to see if they were real.

"Come, children, this will be a good time for our second song," said Miss Senter, making a diversion. "Take hands, now, in a circle; yes—round the clown, if you wish. There—that's right." She signalled to the music to stop, and then, beginning, led the little singers herself:

"Though we're here on foreign shores,

We are all devotion

To our land of Stars and Stripes,

Far across the ocean.

Yankee doodle doodle doo,

Yankee doodle dandy,

Buckwheat cakes are very good,

And so's molasses candy."

Singing this gayly to the well-known fife-like tune, round and round danced the children in a circle, holding each other's hands, the English and Italians generously joining with the little Americans in praise of the matutinal cakes which they had never seen; the Consuless had drilled her choir beforehand, and they sang merrily and well. The first four lines of this ditty had been composed by Peter himself for the occasion.

"I hear you haf written this vurra fine piece!" said a Russian princess, addressing him.

"Oh no," answered the Consul; "I only wrote the first four lines; the chorus is one of our national songs, you know."

"But those first four lines—their sentiment ees so fine, so speerited!" said the princess.

"Well, they're neat," Peter admitted, modestly.

The clown, having recovered his breath, cut a caper. Instantly "Yankee Doodle" came to an end, and the children all stopped to watch him.

"Tell them to play a waltz," said Miss Senter to Carmela, who was in waiting at the door. The deputy must have flown up the little stairway leading to the gallery, for the waltz began in less than a minute. Then Ercole, selecting a pretty American child from among the group, began to dance with her in the most charming way, followed by all the little ones, two and two. Those who could waltz, did so; those who could not, held each other's hands and hopped about.

Supper followed. The hot things were smoking and delicious, and the supplies constantly renewed; old Giorgio was evidently on his mettle. It was the gondolier, still in his clown's dress, who brought in these supplies and handed them to the waiters from Florian's.

"You need not do that, Ercole," said Miss Senter, in an undertone; "these men can go to the kitchen for them."

Ercole bowed; it would not have been respectful to reply with his grinning linen lips. But he continued to fill the same office.

"Perhaps Giorgio won't have Florian's people in the kitchen!" the Consuless reflected.

As soon as supper was over, the children clamored for their clown, and he came bounding in a second time, and, after several astonishing capers, selected a beautiful English child with long golden curls and led a galop, followed again by all the others, two and two. Peter, his mind still occupied with his project of taking the young Italian to America as a star performer, moved from point to point, in order to get different views of him. One of these stations was in the doorway, and here Carmela spoke to him in a low tone, and asked him to come to the outer hall. He did not understand her words; but he comprehended her gesture and followed her. She was talking angrily, almost spluttering, as she led the way. But her talk was lost on her master, who, however, opened his eyes when he saw four policemen standing at his outer door.

"What do you want here?" he said. "This is a private residence, and you are disturbing a Christmas party."

The chief officer told his tale. But Peter did not comprehend him.

"You should have gone to the Consulate," he went on. "The Consulate, you know—Riva Skevony. The vice-consul won't be there so late as this; but you'll find him early to-morrow morning, sure."

The policemen, however, remained where they were.

"There's no making them understand a word," said Peter to himself, in irritation. "Here, you go and call my sister," he said to Carmela, who, in her wrath over this intrusion, stood at a distance swallowing nothing in a series of gulps that made her throat twitch. "Let's see; sister, that's sorelly. Sorelly!" he repeated to Carmela. "Sorelly!"

The enraged little deputy understood. And she got Miss Senter out of the drawing-room without attracting notice. "The master wishes to see the signorina," she said, in a concentrated undertone. "I burn with indignation, for it is an insolent intrusion; it is an insult to his Excellency, who no doubt is a prince in his own country. But they would not go, in spite of all I could say. Nor would they tell me their errand—brutes!" And with her skirts quivering she led the way to the outer hall.

"Find out what these men want, Barly," said Peter, when his sister appeared.

And then the chief officer again told his story.

"Mercy!" said Miss Senter, "how dreadful. Somebody was killed, Peter, about seven o'clock this evening, in a café near the Rialto, and they say they have just found a clew which appears to track the assassin to this very door! And they wish to search."

"What an absurd idea! With the whole place crowded and blazing with lights, as it is to-night, a mouse couldn't hide," said Peter. "Tell them so."

"They repeat that they must search," said Miss Senter. "But if you will exert your authority, Peter—make use of your official position—I am sure we need not submit to such a thing."

Peter, however, was helpless without his vice-consul; he had no clear idea as to what his powers were or were not; he had never informed himself.

Carmela, greatly excited, had drawn Miss Senter aside. "There was a sixth man with those musicians!" she whispered. "I saw him. He did not play, but he sat behind them. And he has only just gone. Five minutes ago."

Miss Senter repeated the information to the chief officer. The officer immediately detached two men to follow this important clew; he himself, with the third, would remain to go through the apartment, as a matter of form.

"As the rooms are all open and lighted," said Miss Senter in English to her brother, "it will only take a few minutes, if go they must, and no one need know anything about it. But whom shall we send with them? If we call Ercole, it will attract attention; and Florian's men, who were due at another place, have already gone. We could have Andrea come up. But no; Giorgio will do best of all. Call Giorgio to go with these men," she added in Italian to Carmela.

"Let me conduct them!" answered the deputy.

"Yes; on the whole, she will be better than any one," said Miss Senter to Peter. "She is so angry at what she calls the insult to you, and so excited about the mysterious person who was with the musicians, that she will bully them and hurry them off to look for him in no time. They can begin with a peep into the drawing-room; I'll tell them to keep themselves hidden." She turned and explained her idea in Italian to the officer; they could glance into the drawing-room first, and then Carmela would take them through all the other rooms; the Consul, though he had the power of refusal, would permit this liberty in the cause of justice. Their search, however, would be unavailing; under the circumstances, it was impossible that any one should have taken refuge there, unless it was that one extra man who had been admitted with the musicians to the gallery. And he was already gone.

"Perhaps he only pretended to go?" suggested the officer. "With permission, I will lock this door." And he did so.

They went to the drawing-room, the policemen moving quietly, close to the wall. When the last anteroom was reached, the two men hid themselves behind the tapestries that draped the door, and, making loop-holes among the folds, peeped into the ball-room. For it was at that moment a ball-room. The children had again taken up their whirling dance around Ercole, and the gondolier, who had now a small child perched on each of his shoulders, was singing with them in a clear tenor, having caught the syllables from having heard them shouted about fifty times:

"Yankee dooda dooda doo,

Yankee dooda dandee,

Barkeet cakar vera goo,

Arso molarsa candee."

Miss Senter had sent Peter back to his guests. She herself, standing between the tapestries as though she were looking on from the doorway, named to the hidden policemen, as well as she could amid the loud singing within, all the persons present, one by one. Finally her list came to a close. "And that is Mr. Barlow, the American who lives at the Danieli; and the one near the Christmas-tree is Mr. Douglas, who has the Palazzo Dario. And the tall, large gentleman with silver hair is Sir William Kay. That is all, except the clown, who is our gondolier, and the five musicians up in the gallery; can you see them from here? If not, Carmela can take you up." And then she thought, with a sudden little shudder, that perhaps the officer's idea was not, after all, impossible; perhaps, indeed, that extra man had only pretended to go!

The policemen signified that this was enough as regarded the drawing-room; they withdrew softly, and waited outside the door.

"Now take them through all the other rooms, Carmela," whispered the Consuless. "Be as quiet about it as you can, so that no one need know. And when they have finally gone, come and stand for a moment between these curtains, as a sign. If, by any chance, they should discover any one—"

"The signorina need not be frightened; I saw the man go myself! And he could not have re-entered without my knowledge. As for these beasts of policemen—" And Carmela's eyes flashed, while her set lips seemed to say, "Trust me to hustle them out!"

"Run up first and tell the musicians to play the music I sent them," said the Consuless. And then she rejoined her guests.

For the next dance was to be a Virginia Reel, and some of the elders were to join the children; the two lines, when arranged, extended down half the length of the long room. It began with great spirit, the clown and the three Kings of Orient dancing at the end of the file.

"It is really Sir Roger de Coverley, an English dance," said Lady Kay to the Russian princess, who was looking on from the chair next her own. "But the Senters like to call it a Virginia Reel, they are so patriotic. And we never contradict the Senters, you know," added the English lady, laughing; "we let them have their way."

"It seems to me a vurra good way," answered the princess, who was a plain-looking old woman with a charming smile. "I have nowhere seen so many reech toyees" (here she glanced at the costly playthings heaped on a table near by). "Nor haf I, in Italy, seen so many tings to eat. With so moche champagne."

"Yes, they always do that," answered the baronet's wife. "They are so very lavish. And very kind."

Miss Senter herself was dancing the reel. Once she thought there was a quaver in the music, and, glancing up quickly towards the gallery, she perceived the heads of the policemen behind the players. The players, however, recovered themselves immediately, and upon looking up again a moment afterwards she saw with relief that the sinister apparition had vanished. Ten minutes later the trim little figure of the deputy appeared between the tapestries of the doorway. Miss Senter, still dancing, nodded slightly, as a signal that she perceived her, and then Carmela, with an answering nod and one admiring look at Ercole, disappeared. After all, now that there had been a suspicion about that extra man, it was a comfort to have had the apartment searched; it would make the moment of going to bed easier, the American lady reflected.

It was now half-past eleven. By midnight the last sleepy child had been carried down the marble stairway, the music ceased, and the musicians departed. The elders, glad that the noise was over, remained half an hour longer; then they took leave. Only Lady Kay and her husband were left; they had waited to take a closer look at Miss Senter's Christmas present to her brother, which was a large and beautifully executed copy of Tintoretto's "Bacchus and Ariadne," from the Anticollegio of the Doge's Palace. It had been placed temporarily on the wall behind the Christmas-tree.

"How exquisite!" said Lady Kay, with a long sigh. "You are most fortunate, Mr. Senter."

"Oh yes. Though I don't quite know what they will think of it in Rochester, New York," answered Peter, chuckling.

Sir William and his wife intended to walk home. When it was cold they preferred to walk rather than go to and fro in a gondola; and as they were old residents, they knew every turn of the intricate burrowing chinks in all the quarters that serve as footways. When they took leave at one o'clock, Peter and Miss Senter, with American friendliness, accompanied them to the outer door. Peter was about to open this door when it was swung back, and a figure reeled in—Ercole. He had taken off his clown's dress, and wore now his gondolier's costume; but this costume was in disorder, and his face was darkly red—a purple red.

"Why, Ercole, is it you? What is the matter?" said Miss Senter, as he staggered against the wall.

"Oh, her Excellency the Consuless, I have been beaten!"

"Beaten? Where have you been? I thought you were down at the landing with Andrea," said Miss Senter.

"The antiquity-dealer suffocates," muttered Ercole. "And Giorgio—dead!"

This "dead" (morto!) even Peter understood. "Dead! What is he saying, Barly?"

"The man is saying, Mr. Senter, that an antiquity-dealer is suffocating, and that somebody he calls Giorgio is dead," translated the pink-cheeked, portly Lady Kay, in her sweet voice. "It's your gondolier, isn't it—the one who played the clown so nicely? What a pity! He has been drinking, I fear."

While she was saying this, Sir William was leading Ercole farther away from the ladies.

"Yes, he is drunk," said Peter, looking at him. "Too bad! We must have help. Let's see; Andrea is down at the landing. I'll get him. And you call Giorgio, Barly."

Here Ercole, held by Sir William, gave a maddened cry, and threw his head about violently.

"Oh, don't leave my husband alone with him, Mr. Senter," said Lady Kay, alarmed. "He is a very powerful young man, and his eyes are dreadful. To me he looks as if he were mad. Those somersaults have affected his head."

And the gondolier's eyes were indeed strangely bloodshot and wild. Miss Senter had hurried to the kitchen. But Giorgio was not there. She came back, and found Ercole struggling with the Englishman and her brother.

"Let me try," she said. "I am not afraid of him. Ercole," she continued, speaking gently in Italian, "go to your room now, and go to bed quietly; everything will be all right to-morrow."

Ercole writhed in Sir William's grasp. "The antiquity-dealer! And Giorgio—dead!"

"Where is Giorgio, Barly?" said Peter, angrily, as he helped Sir William in securing the gondolier. "And where are the other servants? Where's Carmela? Find them, and send one down to the landing for Andrea, and the other for Giorgio. Quick!"

"Oh, Peter, I've been, and I couldn't find Giorgio or any one."

"Carmela was in your bedroom not long ago," said Lady Kay, watching the gondolier's contortions nervously; "she helped me put on my cloak."

Miss Senter ran to her bedroom, her train flying in the haste she made. But in a moment she was back again. "There is no one there. Oh, where are they all?"

Ercole, hearing her voice, peered at her with his crimsoned eyes, and then, breaking loose suddenly, he came and caught hold of her arm. "The antiquity-room. Will she come?"

Peter and Sir William dragged him away by main force.

"The gentlemen, then. Will they come?" said the gondolier, hoarsely. And again freeing himself with two strokes of his powerful arms, he passed out (for the door was still open), and began to descend the outside staircase.

"Oh, thank Heaven, he has gone!" "Oh, lock the door!" cried the two ladies together.

"We must follow him, Mr. Senter," said Sir William. "He is plainly mad from drink, and may do some harm."

"Yes; and down there Andrea can help us," answered Peter.

And the two gentlemen hastened down the staircase. It was a very long flight with three turns. The court below was brilliantly lighted by many wall lamps.

"I don't like my husband's going down," said Lady Kay, in a tremor, as she stood on the landing outside. "If they are going to seize him, the more of us the better; don't you think so? For while they are holding him, you and I could run across and get that other man in from the riva."

But Miss Senter was not there. She had rushed back into the house, and was now calling with all her strength: "Giorgio! Carmela! Assunta! Beppa!" There was no answer, and, seized with a fresh panic by the strangeness of this silence, she hastened out again and joined Lady Kay, who was already half-way down the stairs. The gondolier had not turned towards the water entrance; he had crossed the court in the opposite direction, and now he was passing through a broad, low door which led into the hall on the ground-floor behind the show-room of Z. Pelham, throwing open as he did so both wings of this entrance, so that the light from the court entered in a broad beam across the stone pavement.

"My dear, don't go in!" "Oh, Peter, stop! stop!" cried the two ladies, as they breathlessly descended the last flight.

But Peter and Sir William had paid no attention. Quickly detaching two of the lamps from the wall, they had followed the madman.

"The other gondolier!" gasped Lady Kay.

And the two women ran swiftly to the water-door and threw it open, Miss Senter calling, in Italian: "Andrea! come instantly!"

The little riva along the small canal was also brightly lighted. But there was no one there. And opposite there was only a long blank wall.

"Oh, we must not leave them a moment longer," said Lady Kay.

And again they rushed across the broad court, this time entering the dark water-story; for it was better to enter, dreadful though it was, than to remain outside, not knowing what might be happening within. Ercole meanwhile had made his way into Mr. Pelham's show-room, and here he had struck a match and lighted a candle. As he had left the door of the show-room open, those who were without could see him, and they stopped for a moment to watch what he would do next. It was now a group of four, for the ladies had joined the other two, Miss Senter whispering to her brother:

"Andrea isn't there!"

The gondolier bent down, and began to drag something across the floor and out to the open space behind. "Here!" he said, turning his purple face towards their lamps. "I can no more." And he sat down suddenly on the pavement, and let his head and arms fall forward over his knees.

Peter and Sir William, giving their lamps to the ladies, were approaching cautiously, in order to secure him while he was quiet, when they saw, to their horror, two human legs and feet protruding from the object which he had dragged forth.

"Why, it's the second-hand dealer; it's Z. Pelham!" said Peter, in fresh excitement. "I know his arctics. Bring the lamp, Barly. Quick!"

The two ladies came nearer, keeping one eye upon Ercole. Peter and Sir William with some difficulty cut the rope, and unwound two woollen coverlids and a sheet. Within, almost suffocated, with his hands tied behind him, was the dealer.

"I suppose he did this!" whispered Lady Kay to Miss Senter, her pink face white, as she indicated the motionless gondolier.

Sir William lifted the dealer's head, while Peter loosened his collar.

"Now will Excellencies look for Giorgio," muttered Ercole, without changing his position.

"He says now will you look for Giorgio," translated Lady Kay. "That he tells his crimes shows that he really is mad!" she added, in a whisper.

"No; I think he has come to for the moment, and that's why he tells," said Peter, hastily rubbing Z. Pelham's chest. "Ask him where we shall look, Barly; ask while he's lucid."

"Where must we look for Giorgio, Ercole?" quavered Miss Senter, her Italian coming out with the oddest pronunciation.

"Back stairs," answered the gondolier.

"Back stairs, he says," translated Lady Kay.

"There are no back stairs," replied Peter.

"I'll put this coverlid under his back. That will make him breathe better," said the Englishman, his sympathies roused by the forlorn plight of the little dealer, whose carefully strapped arctic shoes gave ironical emphasis to his helplessness.

Meanwhile Miss Senter, saying "Yes, there are stairs," had run across the pavement with her lamp, found the door at the back of the hall, and opened it. Z. Pelham began to breathe more regularly, although he had not yet opened his eyes. Sir William drew him farther away from the gondolier, and then he and Peter hastened across and looked up the spiral. "It goes to the attics," explained Miss Senter.

"You two stand here at the bottom with one lamp, and Sir William and I will go up with the other," said Peter. "Keep your eye on Ercole, Barly, and if he so much as moves, come right up and join us."

"Wait an instant," said the Englishman. "Stay here with Mr. Senter, Gertrude." Making a détour so as not to rouse the gondolier, he entered the antiquity-dealer's show-room and tried to open the outer door. But it was locked, and the key was not there. "No use," he said, coming hurriedly back; "I had hoped to get help from outside to watch him while we go up. Now remember, Gertrude, you and Miss Senter are to come up and join us instantly if he leaves his place." And then he and Peter ascended the winding steps, carrying one of the lamps. Round and round went the gleam of their light, and the two ladies at the bottom, standing with their skirts caught up ready to run, watched the still form of the gondolier in the distance, visible in the gleam of the candle burning in the show-room. It seemed an hour. But a full minute had not gone when Peter's voice above cried out:

"It's Giorgio! Good God! Killed! Bring up the other light."

And the two ladies rushed up together. There on the landing lay the poor old cook, his eyes closed, his face ghastly, his white jacket deeply stained with blood. Miss Senter, who was really attached to the old man, began to cry.

"He isn't quite dead," said Peter, who had been listening for the heart. "But we must get him out of this icy place. Then we'll tie up Ercoly—we can use that rope—and after he is secured, I can go for help. Here, you take his head and shoulders, Sir William; you are the strongest. And I'll take his body. Barly can take the feet."

"It will be difficult," said the Englishman. "These steep stairs—"

But Peter, when roused, was a veritable little lion. "Come on," he said; "we can do it."

"Please go down first and see if Ercole is still quiet," begged Miss Senter of Lady Kay. And the Englishwoman, who now had both lamps, went down and came back in thirty seconds; she never knew how she did it. "He has not stirred," she said. And then old Giorgio was borne down, and out to the brilliantly lighted court beyond.

"Now," said Peter, whose face was bathed with great drops of perspiration, "we'll first secure him," and he indicated Ercole by pointing his thumb backward over his shoulder towards the water-story, "and then I'll go for a doctor and the police."

But as he spoke, coming out of the door upon his hands and knees, appeared Z. Pelham, who, as soon as he saw the cook's prostrate body, called back, hoarsely, in Italian: "Ercole, get my brandy-flask."

"Oh, don't call him!" said Lady Kay, in terror, clapping a fold of her skirt tightly over the dealer's mouth and holding it there. "He is mad—quite mad!"

Mr. Pelham collapsed.

"Good heavens! Gertrude, don't suffocate the poor creature a second time," said Sir William, pulling his wife away.

Z. Pelham, released, raised his head. "Ercole has been bad beat, and that makes him not genteel," he explained. "Ercole, bring my brandy-flask," he called again, in Italian, and the effort he made to break through his hoarseness brought out the words in a sudden wild yell. "My voice a little deranged is," he added, apologetically, in English.

They could now hear the steps of the gondolier within, and the ladies moved to a distance as he appeared, walking unsteadily, the flask in his hand. "Not dead?" he said, trying to see Giorgio. But his eyes closed convulsively, and as soon as the dealer had taken the flask, down he went, or half fell, on the pavement as before, with his head thrown forward over his knees. Sir William placed himself promptly by his side, while Peter ran within to get the rope. Z. Pelham, uncorking the flask, poured a little brandy between Giorgio's pale lips. "You have all mistake," he said to Sir William as he did this. "Ercole was bad beat by a third partee who has done it all—me and he and this died cook; a third partee was done it all." And he chafed the cook's temples with brandy.

"A third party?" said Peter, who had returned with the rope. "Who?"

"I know not; they knocked me from behind. It was lightning to me, in my head also," answered Z. Pelham, going on with his chafing.

"Come here, Barly," said Peter, taking command. "Say what I tell you. Don't be afraid; Sir William and I will grab him if he stirs. Say, 'Ercoly, who hurt you?'"

"Ercole, who hurt you?" said Miss Senter, tremulously.

"Non so. Un demonio," answered the gondolier, his head still on his knees.

"He says he doesn't know. A demon," said Lady Kay.

"Ask when it happened."

"It was after he had taken the presents from the tree," translated Lady Kay again. "He was struck, dragged down the back stairs, gagged, and left in the antiquity-room. He has only just now been able to free himself."

"How could he act the clown, then?" pursued Peter.

"He says he hasn't been a clown or seen a clown. Oh, Peter, it was some one else disguised! Who could it have been?" cried Miss Senter, running away as if to fly up the staircase, and then in her terror running back again.

The cook's eyes had now opened. "He says see what is stoled," said Mr. Pelham, administering more brandy. Mr. Pelham was seated, tailor fashion, on the pavement, his feet in their arctics under him.

"Giorgio knows something about it, too," said Peter. "Ask him, Barly."

But Miss Senter was incapable of speaking; she had hidden her face on Lady Kay's shoulder, shuddering. The clown with whom she had talked, who had danced all the evening with the children, was an assassin! A strange and savage murderer!

"I'll do it," said the Englishman. And bending over Giorgio, he asked, in correct, stiff Italian: "Do you know who hurt you?"

"A tall, dark man. I never saw him before," answered the cook, or rather his lips formed those words. "He stabbed me after he had struck down Ercole."

"Now he is again gone," soliloquized Z. Pelham, as Giorgio's eyes closed; "I have fear this time he is truly died!" And he chafed the cook's temples anew.

"It's all clear now," said Peter, "and Ercoly isn't mad; only hurt in some way. So I'll go for help at once."

"Oh, Peter, you always get lost!" moaned his sister.

And it was true that the Consul almost invariably lost his way in the labyrinth of chinks behind the palace.

"I'll go," said the Englishman. "It's not very late" (he looked at his watch); "I shall be sure to find some one."

"You must let me go with you, my dear," urged Lady Kay.

In three minutes they were back with two men. "I've brought these two, and there's a doctor coming. And I sent word to the police," said the Englishman.

And following very soon came a half-dressed youth, a young American doctor, who had been roused by somebody. The cook was borne up the stairway and into the salon, where the chandeliers were shedding their soft radiance calmly, and where all the fairy-lamps were still burning on the Christmas-tree; for only twenty minutes had passed since the host and his guests had left the room. Behind the group of the two men from outside, who with Peter and the doctor were carrying Giorgio, came Sir William leading the gondolier, who seemed now entirely blind, while Z. Pelham followed, last of all, on his hands and knees.

"This old man has a deep cut—done with a knife; he has lost a good deal of blood; pretty bad case," said the doctor. "Your gondolier has been dreadfully beaten about the head, but it won't kill him; he is young and strong. This third man seems to be only sprained. Get me something for bandages and compresses, and bring cold water."

"Get towels, Barly," said the Consul.

"Oh, Peter, I'm afraid to go," said Miss Senter, faintly. "The man may still be hidden here somewhere. And I know he has murdered Carmela and the other servants, too!"

Peter ran to his own chamber, and came back with a pile of towels, a sheet from his bed, a large jug of water, and a scissors. "Now, doctor, you stay here and do what you can for all three," he said, as he hurried round the great drawing-room, locking all the doors but one. "And the ladies will stay here with you. The rest of us will search the whole apartment immediately! Lock this last door as soon as we're out, will you?"

"Oh, Peter, don't go!" cried his sister. "Let those two men do it. Or wait for the police."

"My dear, pray consider," said Lady Kay to her husband; "if any one is hidden, it is some desperate character—"

But the Englishman and Peter were already gone, and the ladies were left with the doctor, who, comprehending everything quickly, locked the last door, and then hurried back to the cook. Old Giorgio's mind was now wandering; he muttered incoherently, and seemed to be suffering greatly. The gondolier, his head enveloped in wet towels, was lying in a stupor on one of the sofas. Z. Pelham quietly tied up his own sprained ankles with a portion of the torn sheet, and then assisted with much intelligence in the making of the bandages which the doctor needed for Giorgio.

Sir William, Peter, and the two men from outside began with the kitchen; no one. The pantries and store-rooms; no one. The supper-room; no one. The bedrooms; no one. The anterooms and small drawing-room; no one. As the whole house was still brightly lighted, this did not take long. They now crossed to four rooms on the north side; no one. Then came a large store-room for linen. This was not lighted, so they took in a lamp; no one.

"There's a second door here," said Sir William, perceiving one of those masked flat portals common in Italy, which are painted or frescoed so exactly like the wall that they seem a part of it.

"It opens into a little recess only a foot deep," said Peter, going on with the lamp to the second store-room. "No one could possibly hide there. Now after we have finished on this side, there is only the wood-room left; that is off by itself in a wing."

The Englishman had accompanied his host. But having a strong bent towards thoroughness, he was not satisfied, and he quietly returned alone and opened that masked door. There, flattened against the wall, not clearly visible in the semi-darkness, was the outline of a woman's figure. His exclamation brought back the others with the lamp. It was Carmela.

She stood perfectly still for an instant or two, so motionless, and with such bright eyes staring at them, that she looked like a wax figure. Then she sprang from her hiding-place and made a swift rush down the corridor towards the outer door. They caught her. She fought and struggled dreadfully, still without a sound. So frantic were her writhings that her apron and cap were torn away, and the braids of her hair fell down and finally fell off, leaving only, to Peter's astonishment, a few locks of thin white hair in their place. It took the four men to hold her, for she threw herself from side to side like a wild-cat; she even dragged the four as far as the anteroom nearest the drawing-room in her desperate efforts to reach that outer door. But here, as she felt herself at last over-powered, a terrible shriek burst from her, her face became distorted, her eyes rolled up, and froth appeared on her lips.

The shriek, an unmistakably feminine one, had brought the doctor and two ladies from the drawing-room.

"A fit!" exclaimed the doctor as soon as he saw the froth. "Here, get open that tight dress." He unbuttoned a few buttons of the black bodice, and tore off the rest. "Gracious! corsets like steel." He took out his knife, and hastily cutting the cashmere across the shoulders, he got his hand in and severed the corset strings. "Now, ladies, just help me to get her out of this harness."

And with trembling fingers Lady Kay and Miss Senter gave their aid, and after a moment the whole edifice—for it was an edifice—sank to the floor. What was left was an old, old woman, small and withered, her feeble chest rising and falling in convulsions under her coarse chemise, and the rest of her little person scantily covered with a patched, poverty-stricken under-skirt.

"Oh, poor creature!" said Lady Kay, the tears filling her eyes as all the ribs of the meagre, wasted body showed in the straining, spasmodic effort of the lungs to get breath.

"Bring something to cover her, Barly," said Peter.

And Miss Senter, forgetting her fears, ran to her room, and brought back the first thing she could find—a large white shawl.

"All right now; she's coming to," said the doctor.

The convulsions gradually ceased, and Carmela's eyes opened. She looked at them all in silence as she sat, muffled in the shawl, where they had placed her. Finally she spoke. "The Consul is too late," she said, with mock respect. "The Consuless also. Did they admire the dancing of the clown? A fine fellow that clown! You need not hold me," she added to the two men from outside, who were acting as guards. "I have nothing more to do. My son is safe, and that was all I cared for. They will never find him; he is far from here now. He is very clever, and he has, besides, to help him, all the money which the Consuless so kindly provided for him by keeping it in a secret drawer, whose 'secret' every Italian not an idiot knows. But the Consuless has always had a singular self-conceit. I had only to mention that extra man with the musicians—poor little Tonio the tailor it was—and she swallowed him down whole. I could have got away myself if I had cared to. But I waited, in order to keep back the alarm as long as possible; I waited. Oh yes, I helped all the ladies to put on their cloaks; I helped this English ladyship to put on hers last of all, as she knows. When their Excellencies went down to the water-story, I then tried to go; but I found that they could still see the staircase, so I came back. What matters it? They may do with me what they please. For myself I care not. My son is safe." On her old cheeks, under the falling white hair, were still the faint pink tinges of rouge, and from beneath the wretched petticoat came the two young-looking high-heeled shoes. She folded her thin hands on her lap, and refused to say more.

Assunta and Beppa were found in the wood-room, gagged and bound like the others, but not hurt. And in the morning the Consul's gondola was discovered floating out with the tide, and within it Andrea in the same helpless state. The man, who was an ex-convict, a burglar, suspected of worse crimes, after committing the murder at the café, had fled to the palace. Here he and his intrepid little mother had invented and carried out the whole scheme in the one hour which had followed the distribution of the presents from the tree, before the dancing began. Carmela had even left the house to obtain a clown's costume from a dealer in masquerade dresses who lived near by. And she had herself opened for her son's use the disused door which led to the spiral steps.

That son was never caught. His mother, who had worked for him indefatigably through her whole life—worked so hard that her hands were worn almost to claws—who had supported him and supplied him, who had made herself young and active like a girl, though she was seventy-four, in order to be able to send him money—his mother, who had allowed herself nothing in the world but the few smart clothes necessary for her disguise, who was absolutely honest, but who had stolen for him three thousand francs from the secret drawer, and had stood by and aided him when he beat, stabbed, and gagged her fellow-servants—this mother was not arrested. She should have been, of course. But somehow, very strangely, she escaped from the palace before morning.

Poor old Giorgio was never able to work again. But as Peter pensioned him handsomely, he led an easy life, while Ercole became a magnate among gondoliers.

It was not until three years afterwards, in Rochester, New York, that Peter, surrounded by Z. Pelham's entire collection (which he had purchased, though thinking it hideous, at large prices), confessed to his sister that he had connived at Carmela's escape. "Somehow I couldn't stand it, Barly. That thin white hair and those poor old arms of hers, and that wretched, wasted, gasping little chest—in prison!"

IN VENICE

"YES, we came over again in February, and have been here in Venice since the last of March. For some reasons I was sorry to come back—one is so much more comfortable at home! What I have suffered in these wretchedly cold houses over here words, Mr. Blake, can never express. For in England, you know, they consider fifty-eight Fahrenheit quite warm enough for their drawing-rooms, while here in Italy—well, one never is so cold, I think, as in a warm climate. Yes, we should have been more comfortable, as far as that goes, in my own house in New York, reading all those delightful books on Art in a properly warmed atmosphere (and I must say a properly warmed spirit too), and looking at photographs of the pictures (you can have them as large as you like, you know), instead of freezing our feet over the originals, which half the time the eyes of a lynx could not see. But it is not always winter, of course. And then I have lived over here so long that I have, it seems, acquired foreign ways that are very unpopular at home. You may smile, and it is too ridiculous; but it is so. For instance, last summer we went to Carley Ledge (you know Carley; pretty little place), and we found out afterwards that the people came near mobbing us! Not exactly that, of course, but they took the most violent dislike to us; and why? It is too comical. Because we had innocently treated Carley as we treat a pretty village over here. One lady said, and, I am told, with indignation, that we had been stopping, 'more than once, right in the main street, and standing there, in that public place, to look at a cloud passing over the mountain!' And another reported that she had herself discovered us 'sitting on the grass, no farther away from the main street than the open space in front of Deacon Seymour's, just as though it was out in the country!' That 'out in the country' is rather good, isn't it? Always that poor little main street!"

"Still, I think, on the whole, that the cold houses are worse than the village comments," replied Mrs. Marcy's visitor. "A New-Yorker I know, a confirmed European too, always goes home to spend the three months of winter. When he comes back in the spring his English friends say, 'I hear you have had so many degrees of frost over there—fancy!'—meaning, perhaps, zero or under. To which he assents, but always inflexibly goes back. They look upon him as a kind of Esquimau. But how does Miss Marcy like exile?"

"Oh, Claudia is very fond of Italy. You have not seen her, by-the-way, since she was a child, and she is now twenty. Do you find her altered?"

"Greatly."

"At home she was never thought pretty—when she was younger, I mean. She was thought too—too—vigorous is perhaps the best word; she had not that graceful slenderness one expects to see in a young girl. But over here, I notice, the opinion seems to be different," continued the lady, half questioningly. "And, of course, too, she has improved."

"My dear Miss Sophy—improved? Miss Marcy is a wonderfully beautiful woman."

"Yes, yes, I know; Mr. Lenox thinks so too, I believe," answered Mrs. Marcy, half pleased, half irritated. "It seems she is a Venetian—that is, of the sixteenth century; and dressed in dark-green velvet, with those great puffed Venetian sleeves coming down over her knuckles, a gold chain, and her hair closely braided, she would be, they tell me, a perfect Bonifazio. In fact, Mr. Lenox is painting her as one. Only he has to imagine the dress."

Mrs. Marcy was a widow, and fifty-five. It had pleased her to hear again the old "Miss Sophy" of their youth from Rodney Blake; but as she had been one of those tall, slender, faintly lined girls who are called lilies, and who are associated with pale blues and lavender, she naturally found it difficult to realize a beauty, even if it was that of a niece, so unlike her own. Mrs. Marcy was now less than slender; the blue eyes which had once mildly lighted her countenance were faded. But she still remained lily-like and willowy, and her attire adapted itself to that style; there was a gleam of the lavender still—she wore long shawls and scarfs.

In the easy-chair opposite, Rodney Blake leaned back. He was fifty-six, long and thin, with a permanent expression on his face of half-weary, half-amused cynicism, which, however, seemed to concern itself more with life in general than with people in particular, and thus prevented personal applications. He was well-to-do, well dressed. There was a generally received legend that he was rather brilliant. This was the more remarkable because he seldom said much. But perhaps that was the reason. Miss Marcy had entered as her aunt finished her sentence.

"The sitting is over, then," said the elder lady. "Has Mr. Lenox gone?"

"Not yet," answered the niece, giving her hand to Mr. Blake as he rose to greet her.

She was, as he had said, a beautiful woman. Yet at home there were still those who would have dissented from this opinion, as, secretly, her aunt dissented. She was of about medium height, with the form of a Juno. She had a rich complexion, slowly moving eyes of deep brown, and very thick, curling, low-growing hair of a bright gold color, which showed a warmer reddish tinge in the light. She was the personification of healthy life and vigor, but not of the nervous or active sort; of the reflective. Wherever the sun touched her it struck a color: whether the red of cheek or lip, or the beautiful tint of her forehead and throat, which was not fair but clear; whether the brown of her eyes, or the gold of eyebrows, eyelashes, and the heavy, low-coiled hair. Her features were fairly regular, but not of the pointed type; they were short rather than long, clearly, almost boldly, outlined. Her forehead was low; her mouth not small, the lips beautifully cut. She was attired in black velvet—she affected rich materials—and as she talked she twisted and untwisted a string of large pearls which hung loosely round her throat and down upon the velvet of her dress.

"Mr. Lenox does not have to imagine much, after all," observed Mr. Blake in his slow way to Mrs. Marcy. "In velvet, with those pearls, she does very well as it is."

"They are only Roman beads," said Claudia. "I don't know what you mean, of course."

"I had been telling Mr. Blake that they say that if you had a green velvet, with those big sleeves, you know, and your hair braided close to the head, to make it look too small in comparison with the shoulders, it would be a Bonifazio," explained the aunt.

"Your pearls are not so effective as they might be, Miss Marcy," continued the visitor, scanning her as she took a seat.

"I do not wear them in this way, but so." She unfastened the clasp, and rewound the long string in three close rows, one above the other, round her throat, above the high-coming black of her dress.

"That is better," said her critic.

"It feels like a piece of armor, so I unloosen it as soon as I can," she answered.

Here the artist came in, hat in hand. "I am on my way home," he said. "Good-morning, Mr. Blake. I have only stopped to ask about our expedition this afternoon, Mrs. Marcy."

"Oh, I suppose we shall go," answered that lady, "the day is so fine. How are they at home this morning, Mr. Lenox?"

"Elizabeth is quite well, thanks; Theocritus as usual. Shall I order gondolas, then?"

"If you will be so good; at four. Mr. Blake will, I hope, go with us."

And then Mr. Lenox bowed, and withdrew.

"Does the—the idyllic personage accompany us?" asked the gentleman in the easy-chair.

"It is only a child appended to the name," said Claudia, laughing. "For some reason Mrs. Lenox always pronounces it in full; she could just as well call him Theo."

"It is her nephew, and she is devoted to him," explained Mrs. Marcy. "He is nearly ten years old, but does not look more than five. His health is extremely delicate, and he is at times rather—rather babyish."

"Peevish, isn't it?" said Claudia. She had taken up two long black needles entangled in a mass of crimson worsted, and, disengaging them, was beginning to knit another row on an unfinished stripe. Her beautifully moulded hands, full and white, with one antique gem on each, contrasted with the tint of the wool. The thin fingers of Mrs. Marcy were decked with fine diamonds, and diamonds alone; in spite of the "foreign ways" of which that lady had accused herself, she remained sufficiently American for that. She could buy diamonds, and Claudia an antique ring or two; both aunt and niece enjoyed inherited incomes, that of Claudia being comfortable, that of Mrs. Marcy large.

These ladies occupied rooms on the third floor of a palace on the Grand Canal, not far below the Piazzetta. The palace was a stately example of Renaissance architecture, with three rows of majestic polished columns extending one above the other across its front. Between these columns the American tenant, who had once been called "the lily," and her niece, who was so like a Bonifazio, looked out upon the golden Venetian light—a light whose shadows are colors: mother-of-pearl, emerald, orange, amber, and all the changing gradations between them—thrown against and between the reds, browns, and fretted white marbles of the buildings rising from the water; that ever-moving water which mirrors it all—here a sparkling, glancing surface, there a mysterious darkness, both of them contrasting with the serene blue of the sky above, which is barred towards the riva by the long, lean, sharply defined lateen spars of the moored barks, and made even more deep in its hue over the harbor by the broad sails of the fishing-sloops outlined against it, as they come slowly up the channel, rich, unlighted sheets of tawny yellow and red, with a great cross vaguely defined upon them.

Next to the Renaissance palace was a smaller one, narrow and high, of mediæval Gothic, ancient and weather-stained; it had lancet-windows, adorned above with trefoil, and a little carved balcony like old Venetian lace cut in marble. Here Mr. and Mrs. Lenox occupied the floor above that occupied by the ladies in the larger palace. Communication was direct, however, owing to a hallway, like a little covered bridge, that crossed the canal which flowed between—a canal narrow, dark, and still, that worked away silently all day and all night at its life-long task of undermining the ponderous walls on each side; gaining perhaps a half-inch in a century, together with the lighter achievement of eating out the painted wooden columns which, like lances set upright in the sand at a tent's door, the old Venetians were accustomed to plant in the tide round their water-washed entrances. At four o'clock the little company started, the three from the Gothic palace having come across the hall bridge to join the others. Two gondolas were in waiting; as the afternoon was warm, they had light awnings instead of the antique black tops, with the sombre drapery sweeping out behind.

"I like the black tops better," observed Claudia. "Any one can have an awning, but the black tops are Venetian."

"They can easily be changed," said Lenox.

"Oh no; not in this heat," objected Mrs. Marcy. "We should stifle. Mr. Blake, shall you and I, as the selfish elders, take this one, and let the younger people go together in that?"

"I want to go in the one with the red awning—the bright red," said Theocritus. This was the one Mrs. Marcy had selected.

"No, no, my boy; the other will do quite as well for you," said Lenox.

"It won't," replied the child, in a decided little voice.

"It is not of the slightest consequence," graciously interposed Mrs. Marcy, signalling to the other gondola, and, with Blake's assistance, taking her place within it.

Mr. Lenox glanced at his wife. She was occupied in folding a shawl closely over the boy's little overcoat. "Come, then," he said, giving his hand first to Miss Marcy, then to his wife and the child. The gondolas floated out on the broad stream.

Claudia talked; she talked well, and took the Venetian tone. "The only thing that jars upon me," she said, after a while, "is that these Venetians of to-day—those men and women we are passing on the riva now, for instance—do not appreciate in the least their wonderful water-city—scarcely know what it is."

"They don't study 'Venice' because they are Venice—isn't that it?" said Mrs. Lenox. She had soothed the little boy into placidity, and he sat beside her quietly, with one gloved hand in hers, a small muffled figure, with a pale face whose delicate skin was lined like that of an old man. His eyes were narrow, deep-set, and dark under his faintly outlined fair eyebrows; his thin hair so light in hue and cut so closely to his head that it could scarcely be distinguished.

"I hope not," said Claudia, answering Mrs. Lenox's remark—"at least, I hope the old Venetians were not so; I like to think that they felt, down to their very finger-tips, all the richness and beauty about them."

"You may be sure the feeling was unconscious compared with ours," replied Mrs. Lenox. "They did not consult authorities about the pictures; they were the pictures. They did not study history; they made it. They did not read romances; they lived them."

"I wish I could have lived then," murmured Miss Marcy, her eyes resting thoughtfully on the red tower of San Giorgio, rising from the blue. No veil obscured the beautiful tints of her face; Claudia's complexion could brave the brightest light, the wind, and the sun. The dark-blue plume of the round hat she wore curled down over the rippled sunny braids of her hair. Mr. Lenox was looking at her. But Mr. Lenox was often looking at her.

"That would not be at all nice for us," said Mrs. Lenox, in her pleasant voice, answering the young lady's wish. "If you, Miss Marcy, can step back into the fifteenth century without trouble, we cannot; Stephen and I are very completely of this poor nineteenth."

"I don't know," said Claudia, slowly; she looked at "Stephen" with meditative eyes. "He could have been one of the soldiers. You remember that Venetian portrait in the Uffizi at Florence—General Gattamelata? Mr. Lenox does not look like it; but in armor he would look quite as well."

"I don't remember it," said Mrs. Lenox, turning to see why Theocritus was beating upon her knees with his right fist.

"You must remember—it is so superb!" said Claudia.

"I want to sit on the other side," announced Theocritus.

"When we come back, dear. See, the church is quite near; we shall soon be there now," answered his aunt.

"You remember it, don't you?" said Claudia to Lenox.

"Perfectly."

"No—now," piped Theocritus. "The wind is blowing down my back."

"If he is cold, Stephen—" said Mrs. Lenox.

"I will change places with him," replied her husband. "Do not move, Miss Marcy."

"No; Aunt Lizzie must go too!" said the boy. He had wrinkled up his little face until he looked like an aged dwarf in a temper; he stretched back his lips over his little square white teeth, and glared at his uncle and Miss Marcy.

"Let me change—do," said Claudia, rising as she spoke. And Mrs. Lenox accepted the offer.

"When you have finished my portrait, suppose you paint yourself as a fifteenth-century Venetian general," continued Miss Marcy, taking up again the thread of conversation which had been broken by Theocritus's obstinacy. "The portrait of a man painted by himself is always interesting; you can see then what he thinks he is."

"And is not?" said Lenox.

"Possibly. Still, what he might be. It is his ideal view of himself, and I believe in ideals. It is only our real, purified—what we shall all attain, I hope, in another world."

Thus she talked on. And the man to whom she talked thought it a loveliness of nature that she passed so naturally and unnoticingly over the demeanor of the spoiled child who accompanied them. Mrs. Lenox could, for the present take no further part in the conversation, as Theocritus had demanded that she should relate to him the legend of St. Mark, St. George, and St. Theodore climbing down from their places over the church porch, the palace window, and the crocodile column to fight the demons of the lagoons. This she did, but in so low a tone that the conversation of the others was not interrupted.

They reached the island and landed; Mrs. Marcy and Blake were already there, sitting on the sun-warmed steps of the church whose smooth white façade and red campanile are so conspicuous from Venice. "We were discussing the shape of the prow of the gondola," said Mrs. Marcy, as they came up. "To me it looks like the neck of a swan." Mrs. Marcy never sought for new terms; if the old ones were only poetical—she was a stickler for that—she used them as they were, contentedly.

Mr. Blake, who always took the key-note of the conversation in which he found himself, advanced the equally veteran comparison of the neck of a violin.

"It is the shining blade of St. Theodore, the patron of the gondolas," suggested Claudia.

"To me it looks a good deal like the hammer of a sewing-machine," observed Mrs. Lenox, lightly. This was so true that they all had to laugh.

"But this will never do, Mrs. Lenox," said Blake, turning to look at her as she stood on the broad marble step, holding the little boy's hand; "you will destroy all our carefully prepared atmosphere with your modern terms. Here we have all been reading up for this expedition, and we know just what Ruskin thinks; wait a bit, and you will hear us talk! And not one will be so rude as to recognize a single adjective."

"You admire him, then—Ruskin?" said the lady.

"Admire? That is not the word; he is the divinest madman! Ah, but he makes us work! In some always inaccessible spot he discovers an inscrutably beautiful thing, and then he goes to work and writes about it fiercely, with all his nouns in capitals, and his adjectives after the nouns instead of before them—which naturally awes us. But what produces an even deeper thrill is his rich way of spreading his possessive cases over two words instead of one, as, 'In the eager heart of him,' instead of 'In his eager heart.' This cows us completely."

"I want to go in the church. I don't want to stay out here any longer," announced Theocritus. And, as his aunt let him have his way, the others followed her, and they all went in together.

Compared with the warm sunshine without, the silent aisles seemed cool. After ten minutes or so Mrs. Marcy and Blake came out, and seated themselves on the step again. "You have known her for some time?" Blake was saying.

"Mrs. Lenox? No; only since we first met here, six—I mean seven—weeks ago. But Stephen Lenox I have always known, or rather known about; he is a distant connection of mine. His history has been rather unusual. His mother, a widow, managed to educate him, but that was all; they were really very poor, and Stephen was hard at work before he was twenty. He had some sort of a clerkship in an iron-mill, and was kept at it, I was told, twelve and thirteen hours a day. Before he was twenty-two he married. He worked harder than ever then, although he had, I believe, in time a better place. His wife had no money, either, and she was not strong. Their two little children died. Well, after twelve years of this, most unexpectedly, by the will of an uncle by marriage, he came into quite a nice little fortune; the uncle said, I was told, that he admired a man who, in these days, had never had or asked for the least help from his relatives. And so Stephen could at last do as he pleased, and very soon afterwards they came abroad. For he had been an artist at heart all this time, it seems—at least, he has a great liking for painting, and even, I think, some skill."

"I doubt if he is a creative artist," answered Blake. "He is too well balanced for that—a strong, quiet fellow. His wife is of about his age, I presume?"

"Yes; he is thirty-six, and she the same. They have been over here already nearly two years. She is a very nice little woman" (Mrs. Lenox was tall and slender; but Mrs. Marcy always patronized Mrs. Lenox), "although one does get extremely tired of that spoiled boy she drags about. Do you know," added the lady, deeply, "I feel sure it would be much better for Elizabeth Lenox if she would remember her present circumstances more; there is no longer any necessity for an invariable untrimmed gray gown."

"Doesn't she dress well?" said Blake. "I thought she always looked very neat."

"That is the very word—neat. But there is no flow, no richness. She has been rather pretty once; that is, in that style—gray eyes and dark hair; and she might be so still if she had the proper costumes. Of course, going about Venice in this way one does not want to dress much; but she has not even got anything put away."

"If one does not wear it, what difference does that make?" asked the gentleman.

"All the difference in the world!" replied Mrs. Marcy. "Let me tell you that the very step of a woman who knows she has two or three nice dresses in the bottom of her trunk is different from that of a woman who knows she hasn't."

"But perhaps Mrs. Lenox does not know that she 'hasn't,'" remarked Blake. This, however, went over Mrs. Marcy's head.

Within, the others were looking at the beautiful Tintorettos in the choir. After a while the ill-favored but gravely serene young monk who had admitted them approached and mentioned solemnly "the view from the campanile;" this not because he cared whether they went up or not, but simply as part of his duty.

"I should like to go," said Claudia; "I love to look off over the lagoons."

They turned to leave the choir. "I don't want to go," said Theocritus, holding back. "I want to stay here and see that picture some more; and I'm going to!"

This time Miss Marcy did not yield her wish. "Do not come with me," she said to Mr. and Mrs. Lenox; "it is not in the least necessary. I have been up before, and know the way. I will not be gone fifteen minutes."

"I really think that he ought not to climb all those stairs," said Mrs. Lenox to her husband, looking at the child, who had gone back to his station before the picture.

"Of course not," answered Lenox. Then, after a moment, "I will stay with him," he added; "you go up with Miss Marcy."

"I want Aunt Lizzie to stay—not Uncle Stephen!" called the boy, overhearing this, and turning round to scowl at them.

"He will not be good with any one but me," said Mrs. Lenox, in a low tone. "You two go up; I will wait for you here."

"The question is, Is he ever good, even with her?" said Claudia, following Lenox up the long flight of steps that winds in square turns up, up, to the top of the campanile.

"She says he is sometimes very sweet and docile—even affectionate," replied Lenox. "She thinks he has quite a remarkable mind, and will distinguish himself some day if we can only tide his poor, puny little body safely over its childish weakness, and give him a fair start."

"She is very fond of him."

"Yes; his mother was her dearest friend, his father her only brother."

Claudia considered that she had now given sufficient time to this subject (not an interesting one), and they talked of other things, but in short sentences, for they were still ascending. Twice she stopped to rest for a minute or two; then Lenox came down a step, and stood beside her. There was no danger; still, if a person should be seized with giddiness, the thought of the near open well in the centre, going darkly down, was a dizzy one.

At the top they had the view: wide green flatness towards the east, northeast, southeast, with myriad gleaming, silvery channels; the Lido and the soft line of the Adriatic beyond; towns shining whitely in the north; to the west, Venice, with its long bridge stretching to the mainland; in port, at their feet, a large Italian man-of-war; on the south side, the point of the Giudecca.

"‘À Saint-Blaise, à la Zuecca,

Vous étiez bien aise;

À Saint-Blaise, à la Zuecca,

Nous étions bien là!’"

quoted Claudia. "I chant it because I have just discovered that the Zuecca means the Giudecca yonder."

"What is the verse?" said Lenox.

"Don't you know it? It is Musset."

"I have read but little, Miss Marcy."

"You have not had time to read," said Claudia, with a shade of emphasis; "your time has been given to better things."

"Yes, to iron rails!"

"To energy and to duty," she answered. Then she turned the subject, and talked of the tints on the water.

Down below, in the still church, the little boy sat beside his aunt, her arm round him, his head leaning against her. The monk had withdrawn.

"The angels were all there, no doubt," she was saying; "but only a few painters have ever tried to represent them in the picture. It is not easy to paint an angel if you have never seen one."

"Pooh! I have seen them," said Theocritus, "hundreds of times. I have seen their wings. They come floating in when the sunshine comes through a crack—all dusty, you know. How many of them there do you suppose saw the angels? Not that big girl with the plate, anyhow, I know!" Thus they talked on.

When the two from the campanile returned, and they went out to embark, a slight breeze had risen. The little boy lifted his shoulders uneasily, and seemed almost to shiver. Mrs. Lenox felt of his head and hands. "I think I had better take him back in one of those covered gondolas, Stephen," she said. "He seems to be cold; he might have a chill."

"Surely it is very warm," said Mrs. Marcy.

"Yes, but he is so delicate," replied the other lady.

"I will go with you, Mrs. Lenox," said Claudia.

"Oh no; the gondolas here are the small ones, I see, and Stephen could not come with us. Do not leave him to go back alone; if one of us sees to the child, that is enough."

It ended, therefore, according to her arrangement: she went back with Theocritus in a covered gondola, Mrs. Marcy and Blake returned as they had come, while Claudia and Lenox had the third boat to themselves.

Rodney Blake being added, this little party continued its Venetian life. Lenox made some progress with his portrait of Claudia, but it was not thought, at least by the others, that his wife made any with Theocritus, that child remaining as delicate as ever, and, if possible, more troublesome. In Mrs. Marcy's mind there had sprung up, since Mr. Blake's arrival, an aftermath of interest in Venetian art and architecture which was richer even than the first crop; she went contentedly to see the pictures, churches, and palaces a fourth and even fifth time.

Claudia had a great liking for St. Mark's. "But who has not?" said Mrs. Marcy, reproachfully, when Blake commented upon the younger lady's fancy.

"Yes; but it is not every liking that is strong enough to take its possessor there every day through eight long, slow weeks," answered the gentleman.

"Not so slow," said Claudia. "But how do you know? You have been here through only one of them."

"That leanest mosaic in the central dome is an old friend of mine; he has told me many things in his time (I am an inveterate Venetian lounger, you know), bending down from his curved abode, his glassy eyes on mine, and a long, thin finger pointed. Be careful; he has noticed you."

Several days later, strolling into the church, he found her there. "As usual," he said.

"Yes, as usual," she answered. Miss Marcy liked Blake; his slow remarks often amused her. And she liked to be amused—perhaps because she was not one of those young ladies who find everything amusing. She was sitting at the base of the last of the great pillars of the nave, where she could see the north transept with the star-lights of the chapel at the end, the old pulpit of colored marbles with its fretted top and angel, and the deep, gold-lined dimness of the choir-dome, into which the first horizontal ray of sunset light was now stealing—a light which would soon turn into miraculous splendor its whole expanse.

"It always seems to me like a cave set with gold and gems," said Blake, taking a seat beside her. "And, in reality, that is what it is, you know—a wonderful robbers' cavern. As somebody has said, it is the church of pirates—of the greatest sea-robbers the world has ever known; and they have adorned it with the magnificent mass of treasure they stole from the whole Eastern hemisphere."

"I wish they had stolen a little for me—one of those Oriental chains, for instance. But what pleases me best here is the light. It isn't the bright, vast clearness of St. Peter's that makes one's small sins of no sort of consequence; it isn't the sombreness of the Duomo at Florence, where one soon feels such a dreadful repentance that the new virtue becomes acute depression. It is a darkness, I admit, but of such a warm, rich hue that one feels sumptuous just by sitting in it. I do believe that if some of our thin, anxious-faced American women could only be induced to come and sit here quietly several hours a day they would soon grow serene and physically opulent, like—"

"Like yourself?"

"Like the women of Veronese. (Of course I shall have to admit that I do not need this process. Unfortunately, I love it.) But those Veronese pictures, Mr. Blake—after all, what do they tell us? Blue sky and balconies, feasts and brocades, pages and dogs, colors and splendor, and those great fair women, with no expression in their faces—what does it all mean?"

"Simply beauty."

"Beauty without mind, then."

"A picture does not need mind. But, to be worth anything, beauty it must have."

"I don't know; a picture is a sort of companion. One of those pictures would not be that; you might as well have a beautiful idiot."

"Ah, but a picture is silent," replied Blake.

Claudia laughed. "You are incorrigible." Then, going back to her first subject, "I wish Mrs. Lenox would come here more," she said.

"You think she needs this enriching process you have suggested?"

"In one way—yes. All this beauty here in Venice is so much to her husband; while she—is forever with that child!"

"But she does not keep him from the beauty."

"No; but she might make it so much more to him if she would."

"Why don't you suggest it to her?"

"There is no use. She does not understand me, I think. We speak a different language."

"That may be. But I fancy she understands you."

"Perhaps she does," answered Claudia, with the untroubled frankness which was one of her noticeable traits. She spoke as though she thought, indeed, that Claudia Marcy's nature was a thing which Mrs. Lenox, or any one, might observe. Claudia rather admired her nature. It was not perfect, of course, but at least it was large in its boundaries, and above the usual feminine pettinesses; she felt a calm pride in that. She was silent for a while. The first sunset ray had now been joined by others, and together they had lighted up one-half of the choir-dome; its gold was all awake and glistening superbly, and the great mosaic figure enthroned there began to glow with a solemn, mysterious life.

"Men should not marry until they are at least thirty, I think," resumed Claudia; "and especially those of the imaginative or artistic temperament. Three-quarters of the incongruous marriages one sees were made when the husband was very young. It is not the wife's fault; at the time of the marriage she is generally the superior, the generous one; the benefit is conferred by her. But—she does not advance, and he does."

"What would you propose in the way of—of an amelioration?" asked her listener.

"There can, of course, be no amelioration in actual cases. But there might be a prevention. I think that a law could be passed—such as now exists, for instance, against the marriage of minors. If a man could not marry until he was thirty or older, he would at that time naturally select a wife who was ten years or so his junior rather than one of his own age."

"And the women of thirty?"

"They would be already married to the men of fifty, you know."

Here a figure emerging from the heavy red-brown shadows of the north aisle, and seeming to bring some of them with it, as it advanced, crossed the billowy pavement, and stopped before them. It was Mr. Lenox. He took a seat on the other side of Blake, and they talked for a while of the way the chocolate-hued walls met the gold of the domes solidly, without shading, and of the total absence of white—two of the marked features of the rich interior of the old pirate cathedral. At length Blake rose, giving up his place beside Miss Marcy to the younger man. "I think we have still a half-hour before that jailer of a janitor jangles his keys," she said.

"Yes; but for the men of fifty it is time to be going," answered Blake. "They take cold rather easily, you know, those poor fellows of fifty."

He went away. Claudia and Lenox remained until the keys jangled.

Every day the weather and the water-city grew more divinely fair. June began. And now even Mrs. Marcy saw no objection to their utilizing the moonlight, and no longer spoke of "wraps." The evenings were haunted by music; everybody seemed to be floating about singing or touching guitars. The effect of the mingled light and shadows across the fronts of the palaces was enchanting; they could not say enough in its praise.

"Still, do you know sometimes I would give it all for the fresh odor of the fields at home, in the country, and the old scent of lilacs," said Mrs. Lenox.

"Do you care for lilacs?" said Claudia. "If you had said roses—"

"No, I mean lilacs—the simple country lilacs. And I want to see some currant bushes, too; yes, and even an old wooden garden fence," replied Mrs. Lenox, laughing, but nevertheless as if she meant what she said. She went with them only that once in the evening, for when she reached home she found that the little boy had been wakeful, and that he had refused to go to sleep again because she was not there. After this the others went without her in a gondola holding four. At last, although the moonlight lingers longer in Venice than anywhere else, there was, for that month at least, no more. Yet still the evening air was delicious, and the music did not cease; the effect of the shadows was even more marvellous than the mingled light and shade had been. They continued to go out and float about for an hour or two in the warm, peopled darkness. They went also, but by daylight, to Torcello, and this time Theocritus was of the party. During half of the day he was more despotic than he had ever been, but later he seemed very tired; he slept in his aunt's arms all the way home. Once she made an effort to transfer him to her husband, as the weight of his little muffled figure lay heavily on her slender arm; but Theocritus was awake immediately, and began to beat off his uncle's hands with all his might.

"Do let me take him, Elizabeth; he will soon fall asleep again," said Lenox. He looked annoyed. "You are overtaxing your strength; I can see that you are tired out."

"It will not harm me; I know when I am really too tired," answered his wife. She gave him a little trusting smile as she spoke, and his frown passed off.

They were all together in one of the large gondolas; Blake noted this little side-scene.

That night Theocritus had a slight attack of fever. Mrs. Lenox said that it came from over-fatigue, and that he must not go on any of the longer expeditions. When they went to Murano, therefore, and down to Chioggia, she did not accompany them, but remained at home with her charge.

Mrs. Marcy was enjoying this last month in Venice greatly. "Naturally, it is much pleasanter when one has some one to attend to one, and one too who knows one's tastes and looks after one's little comforts," she remarked to her niece, with some intricacy of impersonal pronouns. The lily did not observe that the attentions she found so agreeable were being offered to her niece also by another impersonal pronoun. As she would herself have said, "naturally," when they went here and there together, the two elders often sat down to rest awhile when Claudia and Lenox did not feel the need of it.

"Of course, with her beauty, her attractive qualities, and her fortune, Miss Marcy has had many suitors," said Blake to the aunt during one of these rests.

"Several," answered that lady, moderately. "But Claudia is not at all susceptible. Neither is she so—so generally attractive as you might suppose. She has too little thought for the opinions of others. She says, for instance, just what she thinks, and that, you know, is seldom agreeable."

"True; we much prefer that people should say what they don't. I have myself noticed some plainly evident faults in her: a most impolitic honesty; and, when stirred, an impulsiveness which is sure to be unremunerative in the long-run. I should say, too, that she had an empyrean sort of pride."

"Yes," replied the lily, not knowing what he meant, but concluding on the whole that he spoke in reprobation. "As I said before, she has not quite enough of that true feminine softness one likes so much to see—I mean, of course, in a woman."

"Her pride will be her bane yet. It will make her blind to the most obvious pitfall. However, I'll back her courage against it when once she sees where she has dropped."

"What?" said the lily.

"She will in time learn from you; she could not follow a more lovely example," said Blake, coming back from his reflections.

Towards the last of June a long expedition was planned, an expedition into "Titian's country," which was to last three days. This little pilgrimage had been talked about for a long time, Mrs. Lenox being as much interested in it as the others. Whether she would have had the courage to take Theocritus, even in his best estate, is a question; but after the time was finally set and all the arrangements made, his worst asserted itself, and so markedly that it was plain to all that she could not go. Something was said about postponement, but it was equally plain that if they were to go at all they should go at once, as the weather was rapidly approaching a too great heat. Claudia wished particularly to take this little journey; she had set her heart upon seeing the Titians and reputed Titians said to be still left in that unvisited neighborhood. Blake asserted that she even expected to discover one. It was next proposed (although rather faintly) that Mr. Lenox should be excused from the pilgrimage. But it could not be denied that the little boy had been quite as ill (and irritable) several times before in Venice, and that he had always recovered in a day or two. Not that Mrs. Lenox denied it; on the contrary, she was the one to mention it. She urged her husband's going; it was the excursion of all others to please him the most. It ended in his consenting; it seemed, indeed, too much to give up for so slight a cause.

"She looks a little anxious," observed Blake, as they waited for him in the gondola which was to take them to the railway station. Lenox had said good-bye to her, and was now coming down the long stairway within, while she had stepped out on her balcony to see them start.

"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Marcy. "To me she always looks just the same, always so unmoved."

Lenox now came out, and the gondola started. Claudia looked back and waved her hand, Mrs. Lenox returning the salutation.

On the evening of the third day, at eleven o'clock, a gondola from the railway station stopped at the larger palace's lower door, and three persons ascended the dimly lighted stairs.

At the top Mrs. Lenox's servant was waiting for them. "Oh, where is signore? Is he not with you? He has not come? Oh, the poor signora—may the sweet Madonna help her now!" cried the girl, with tears in her sympathetic Italian eyes. "The poor little boy is dead."

They rushed up the higher stairway and across the hall bridge. But it was as the woman had said. There, on his little white bed, lay the child; he would be troublesome no more on this earth; he was quiet at last. Mrs. Lenox stood in the lighted doorway of her room as they came towards her. When she saw that her husband was not with them, when they began hurriedly to explain that he had not come, that he had stayed behind, that he had sent a note, she swayed over without a word and fainted away.

It was only over-fatigue, she explained later. The child had lain in her arms for thirty hours, most of the time in great pain, and she had suffered with him. She soon recovered consciousness and was quite calm—more calm than they had feared she would be. They were anxiously watchful; they tended her with the most devoted care. Blake did what he could, and then waited. After a while, when Mrs. Lenox had in a measure recovered, he softly beckoned Mrs. Marcy out.

"You must tell her that her husband will not be back in time for—that he will not be back for at least six days, and very likely longer. And as his route was quite uncertain, we cannot reach him; there is no telegraph, of course, and even if I were to go after him I could only follow his track from village to village, and probably come back to Venice behind him."

"How can I tell her!" said the tearful lady. "Perhaps Claudia—"

"No, on no account. You are the one, and you must do it," replied Blake, and with so much decision that she obeyed him. Thus the wife was told.

What Blake had said was true; it was hopeless to try to reach Lenox before the time when he would probably be back of his own accord. He had started on a hunt after some early drawings of Titian's, of which they had unearthed dim legends. One was said to be in an old monastery, among others of no importance; two more were vaguely reported as now here, now there. Lenox had not been certain of his own route, but expected to be guided from village to village according to indications. It was not even certain whether he would come back by Conegliano or strike the railway at another point. "It certainly is an inexorable fate!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Marcy, in the emergency driven to unusual expressions.

But when Stephen Lenox's wife understood the position in which she was placed, she at once decided upon all that was to be done, and gave her directions clearly and calmly—directions which Blake executed with an attention and thoughtful care as complete as any one could possibly have bestowed.

The little boy was to be buried at Venice, in the cemetery on the island opposite, early in the morning of the second day.

"She is so sensible!" Mrs. Marcy commented, admiringly. "Of course, under all the circumstances, it is the thing to do. But so many women would have insisted upon—all sorts of plans; and it would have been so hard."

"I would willingly carry out anything she wished for, no matter how difficult," replied Blake. "I greatly respect and admire Mrs. Lenox. But, as you say, the perfect balance of her character, her clear judgment and beautiful goodness, have at once decided upon the best course." (The lily had not quite said this; but in her present state of distressed sympathy she accepted it.)

Claudia, meanwhile, remained through all very silent. She assisted, and ably, in everything that was done, but said almost nothing.

The evening before the funeral the two ladies went across to Mrs. Lenox's rooms; they had left her some hours before, as she had promised to lie down for a while, but they thought that she was now probably awake again. They found her sitting beside the little white-shrouded form.

"Now this is not wise, Elizabeth," began Mrs. Marcy, chidingly.

"I think it is; I like to look at him," replied the watcher. "See, the peaceful expression I have been hoping for has come; it is not often needed on the face of a child, but it was with my poor little boy. Look."

And, sure enough, there shone upon the small, still countenance a lovely sweetness which had never been there in life. The face did not even seem thin; its lines had all passed away; it looked very fair and young, and very peacefully at rest.

"His mother would know him now at once; he was a very pretty little fellow the last time she saw him, when he was about a year old," she went on. "I was very fond of his mother, and his father, as probably you know, was my only brother. Their child was very dear to me," she resumed, after a short silence, which the others did not break. "His constant suffering made him unlike stronger, happier children, and I think that was the very reason I loved him the more. I wanted to make it up to him. But I could not. I suppose he never knew what it was to be entirely without pain—the doctors have told me so. He did not know anything else, or any other way, but to suffer more or less, and to be tired all the time. And he was so used to it, poor little fellow, that I suppose he thought that every one suffered too—that that was life. He has found a better now." Leaning forward, she took the small hands in hers. "All my loving care, dear child, was not enough to keep you here," she said, smoothing them tenderly. "But you are with your mother now; that is far better."

The funeral took place early the next morning. Then Mrs. Lenox came back to her empty rooms, and entered them alone. She preferred it so.

After the first explanation, the only allusion she had made to her husband's absence was to Rodney Blake. That gentleman had not expressed the shadow of a disapprobation. He had not told her that he had objected to Lenox's lengthened absence, and had done what he could to prevent it; he had stopped Mrs. Marcy sharply when she spoke of telling.

"Can't you see, Sophy, that that would be the worst of all for her?" he said; "to know that Lenox would go, in spite of my unconcealed opposition, just because Clau—just because he wanted those trivial drawings," he added, changing the termination of his sentence, but quite sure, meanwhile, that "Sophy" would never discover what he had begun to say.

Mrs. Lenox's remark was this. Blake had come in to speak to her about some necessary directions concerning the funeral, and when she had given them she said: "It will be a grief to Stephen when he comes back that he could not have seen the little boy, even if but for once more. And I hoped so that he would see him! I expected you back at eight—you know that was the first arrangement—and towards seven he seemed easier. Once he even smiled, and talked a little about that legend of St. Mark and St. Theodore, of which, you remember, he was so fond. Then it was half-past seven, and I still hoped. And then it grew towards eight, and he was in pain again. Still I kept listening for the sound of your gondola. But it did not come. And at half-past eight he died. But perhaps it was as well so," she continued, although her voice trembled a little. "Stephen would have felt his suffering so much. I was more used to it, you know, than he was."

"Yes," answered Blake.

But she seemed to know that he was not quite in accord with her. "Of course I feel it very deeply, Mr. Blake, on my own account, that my husband is not here; I depend upon him for everything, and feel utterly lonely without him. But his absence is one of those accidents which we must all encounter sometimes, and as to everything else—the outside help I needed—you have done all that even he could have done. You have been very good to me," and she held out her hand.

Blake took it, and thanked her. And in his words this time he put something that contented her. It was the sacrifice he made to his liking for Stephen Lenox's wife.

The evening after the funeral Mrs. Marcy, who had been made nervous and ill by all that had happened, went out at sunset for a change of air, and Blake accompanied her. Claudia preferred to stay at home. But five minutes after the departure of their gondola she went up the stairs and across the hall bridge that led to Mrs. Lenox's apartment. Mrs. Lenox was there, lying on the sofa. It was the first time since the return that the two had been alone together. She looked pale and ill, and there were dark shadows under her eyes; but she smiled and spoke in her usual voice, asking Claudia to sit beside her in an easy-chair that stood there. Claudia sat down, and they spoke on one or two unimportant subjects. But the girl soon paused in this.

"I have come to say," she began again, in a voice that showed the effort she made to keep it calm, "that I shall never forgive myself, Mrs. Lenox, for—for a great deal that I have thought about you, but especially for having had a part in the absence of your husband at such a time. If it had not been for me he would not have gone off on that foolish expedition. But I wanted those miserable drawings, or at least sketches of them, and so I kept talking about it. When I think of what you have had to go through, alone, in consequence of it, I am overwhelmed." Here her voice nearly broke down.

"You must not take it all upon yourself, Miss Marcy," answered the wife. "No doubt Stephen wanted to please you; no doubt he wanted to very much—to get you the drawings, if it was possible; of that I am quite sure."

But Claudia was not quieted. "If you knew how I have suffered—how I suffer now as I see you lying there so pale and ill"—here she stopped again. "I come to tell you how I feel your suffering, and I spend the time talking about my own," she added, abruptly. "I am a worthless creature!" And covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.

Mrs. Lenox put out her hand and stroked the beautiful bowed head caressingly. "Do not feel so badly," she said. "You must not; it is not necessary."

"But it is—it is," said the girl, amid her tears. "If you knew—"

"I do know, Claudia. I know you."

"Oh, if you really do," said Claudia, lifting her head, her wet eyes turned eagerly upon the wife, "then it is better."

"It is better; it is well. My dear, I think I have understood you all along."

"But—I have not understood myself," replied Claudia. She had nerved herself to say it; but after it was spoken a deep blush rose slowly over her whole face until it was in a flame. Through all its heat, however, she kept her eyes bravely upon those of the wife.

"That I knew, too," rejoined Mrs. Lenox. "But I also knew that there was no danger," she added.

"There was not. It was unconscious. In any case, I should in time have recognized it. And destroyed it, as I do now." These short sentences were brought out, each with a fresh effort. "I do not speak of—of the other side," the girl went on, with abrupt, heavy awkwardness of phrase. "There never was any other side—it was all mine." And then came the flaming blush again.

"But you are very beautiful, Claudia?" said the other woman, not as if disturbed at all in her own quiet calm, but half tentatively.

"Yes, I am beautiful," replied Claudia, with a sort of scorn. "But he is not that kind of man," she added, a quick, involuntary pride coming into her eyes. Then she turned her head away, shading her face with her hand. She said no more; it seemed as if she had stopped herself shortly there.

After a moment or two Mrs. Lenox began to speak. "All this life, here in Venice, has been so much to Stephen," she said, in her sweet, quiet voice. "You know he has worked very hard—he was obliged to; just so many hours of each long day, for long, hard years. He never had any rest; and the work was always distasteful to him, too. It was a slavery. And it was beginning to tell upon him; he could not have kept it up without being worn out both in body and mind. Judge, then, how glad I am that he has had all this change and pleasure—he needed it so! There is that side to his nature—a love of the beautiful, and a strong one. This has been always repressed and bound down; it is natural that it should break forth here. I have not the feeling myself—at least, not like his; but I understand it in him, and sympathize with it fully." She paused. Claudia did not speak.

"You have not been a wife, Claudia, and therefore there are some things you do not know," pursued the voice. "A wife becomes in time to her husband such a part of himself (that is, if he loves her) that she isn't a separate person to him any more, and he hardly thinks of her as one; she is himself. Many things become a matter of course to him—are taken for granted—on this very account. It does not occur to him that she may feel differently. He supposes that they feel alike. Often they do. Still, a woman's thoughts do not always run in the same channel as those of a man; we are more timid, more limited, more—afraid of things, you know; but the husband does not always remember that. But there are some things in which a husband and wife do feel alike, always and forever; there are ties which are eternal. And my own life holds them—ties and memories so precious that I can hardly explain them to you; memories of those early years of ours when we were so alone and poor, but so dear to each other that we did not mind it. We love each other just the same; but then we had nothing but our love—and it was enough. The coming, the short stay with us, and the fading away of our two little children, Claudia—these are ties deep down in our hearts which nothing can ever sunder. Stephen will go back to all that old grief of his when he comes home to find the little boy gone. For the greatest sorrow of his life, one he has never at heart overcome, was that he felt when we lost our own little boy. Stephen had loved the child passionately, and would not believe that he must go; and when he did he bowed his head in a silence so long that I was frightened. I had never seen him give up before. But even that is a dear tie between us, for then he had only me. Those early years of ours, with their joys and sorrows—I often think of them. A man does not dwell upon such memories, one by one, as a woman does. But they are none the less there, a part of his life and of him." She stopped. "Do not mind," she added, in a changed voice. "I am only—a little tired, I think."

Claudia, who had not moved, turned quickly. Mrs. Lenox's eyes were closed; she was very pale. But she did not faint; owing to Claudia's quick, efficient help, she was soon herself again. "You know what to do, don't you?" she said, smiling, when the faint feeling had passed.

"It is not that I know, so much as that I long to help you," answered Claudia. "I wish you would let me unbraid your hair, and make you ready for bed; you look so tired, and perhaps I could do it with a lighter touch than Bianca," she added, humbly.

"Very well," said the other, assentingly.

And with much care and skill the girl performed her task. "I will even put out the light," she said. "I will tell Bianca that you have gone to bed, and are not to be disturbed." When all was done and the light out, she paused for a moment by the bedside. "I am not going to talk any more," she said, "but I will just say this: aunt and I are going away. To-morrow, probably, or the day after. You will not be left alone, for Mr. Blake will stay."

There was a silence. Then Mrs. Lenox's voice said: "That is a mistake. It would be better to stay."

"I do not see it in that way," answered the girl. Then, "You must not ask too much," she added, in a lower voice.

Mrs. Lenox took her hands, which were hanging before her, tightly clasped. The touch shook Claudia; she sank down beside the bed and hid her face.

"Stay; it is far better," whispered the wife. "Then it will be over. By going away you will only think about it the more."

"Yes, I know. But—"

"I will answer for all. I know you better than—you know yourself. When you see us together, it will be different to you. Stay, to please me."

"Very well," murmured the girl.

They kissed each other, and she rose. When she had reached the door Mrs. Lenox spoke again. "Of course, you know that I quite understand that it is only a girl's fancy," she said, with a tender lightness. This was her offering to Claudia.

On the evening of the seventh day after the funeral Stephen Lenox came back; he had sent a despatch to his wife from Conegliano, and Blake was therefore able to meet him at Mestre, and tell him what had happened. He went directly home, and the others did not see him until the next evening. Then he came across to the larger palace. Blake was there; he kept himself rather constantly with Mrs. Marcy now, perhaps to direct that lady's somewhat wandering inspirations. For this occasion he had warned her that she must not be too sympathetic, that she must be on her guard. So Mrs. Marcy was "on her guard;" she only took out her handkerchief four times; she even talked of the weather. Claudia scarcely spoke. Blake himself conducted the conversation, and filled all the gaps. They could naturally say a good deal about the health of Mrs. Lenox, as that lady had been obliged to keep her room for the three preceding days. Lenox did not stay long; he said he must go back to his wife. As he rose he gave the small portfolio he had brought with him to Claudia. "I don't think they were Titians," he said. "But I sketched them for you as well as I could."

Mrs. Marcy thought this an opportunity; she took the portfolio, and exclaimed over each picture. Blake, too, put up his eye-glass to look at them. Lenox said a word or two about them and waited a moment longer; then he went away. Claudia had not glanced at them.

He never knew of her visit to his wife; those are the secrets women keep for each other, unto and beyond the grave.

What passed when he came home was simple enough. His wife cried when she saw him; she had not cried before. She told him the history of the little boy's last hours, and of all he had said, and of the funeral. Then they had talked a while of her health, and then of future plans.

"I ought to have remembered that you were anxious about him even before I went away," said Lenox, going back abruptly to the first subject. He was standing by the window, looking out; this was an hour after his return.

"But he had been ill so many times. No, it was something we could not foresee, and as such we must accept it. I wanted you to go—don't you remember? I urged your going. You must not blame yourself about it."

"But I do," answered her husband.

"I cannot allow you to; I shall never allow it. To me, Stephen, all you do is right; I wish to hear nothing that could even seem otherwise. I trust you entirely, and always shall."

He turned. She was lying back in an easy-chair, supported by pillows. He came across and sat down beside her, his head bent forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his face in his hands. He did not speak.

"Because I know that I can," added the wife.

That was all.

They stayed on together in Venice through another two weeks. Mrs. Lenox improved daily, and was soon able to go about with them. She seemed, indeed, to bloom into a new youth. "It is the reaction after the long, wearing care of that child," explained Mrs. Marcy. "And isn't it beautiful to see how devoted he is to her, and how careful of her in every way? But I have always noticed what a devoted husband he was, haven't you?"

These two ladies and Mr. Blake were going to Baden-Baden. But the others were going back to America. "We may return some time," said Lenox; "but at present I think we want a home."

"I wish we could have stayed on together always, just as we are now," sighed the sentimental lily, smoothing the embroidered edge of her handkerchief. "Such a pleasant party, and of just the right size; these last two weeks have been so perfect!"

The time for parting came. The three who were going to Baden-Baden were to leave at dawn, and they had come across to Mrs. Lenox's parlor to spend a last hour. Claudia talked more than usual, and talked well; she looked brilliant.

At the end of the second hour the good-byes began in earnest. Everything that was appropriate was said, Blake, in particular, delivering himself unblushingly of one long fluent commonplace after another. They were to meet again—oh, very soon; they were to visit each other; they were to write frequently—one would have supposed, indeed, that Blake intended to send a daily telegraphic despatch. At last the lily, having kept them all standing for twenty minutes, bestowed upon Mrs. Lenox a final kiss, and really did start, the two gentlemen and Claudia accompanying her down the long hall. But the hall was dark, and Claudia was behind; without the knowledge of the others she slipped back.

Mrs. Lenox was standing where they had left her. When she saw the girl returning, pale, repressed, all the sparkle gone, she went to her, and put her arms round her; Claudia laid her head down upon the other's shoulder. Thus they stood for several moments in silence. Then, still without speaking, Claudia went away.

When Mrs. Marcy reached the stairway which led down to her own apartment, on the other side of the hall bridge, "Why, where is Claudia?" she said.

"Here I am," said her niece, appearing from the darkness.

"You will come down with us for a moment, won't you, Mr. Lenox?" suggested the lily. "Just for one last look?"

"Do not ask him," said Claudia, smiling; "he is worn out! We have already extended that look over two long hours. Good-bye, Mr. Lenox; and this time, I think, is really the last."

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BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON.

HORACE CHASE. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

JUPITER LIGHTS. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

EAST ANGELS. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

ANNE. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.

FOR THE MAJOR. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00.

CASTLE NOWHERE. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00.

RODMAN THE KEEPER. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00.

There is a certain bright cheerfulness in Miss Woolson's writing which invests all her characters with lovable qualities.—Jewish Advocate, N. Y.

Miss Woolson is among our few successful writers of interesting magazine stories, and her skill and power are perceptible in the delineation of her heroines no less than in the suggestive pictures of local life.—Jewish Messenger, N. Y.

Constance Fenimore Woolson may easily become the novelist laureate.—Boston Globe.

Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the development of a story is very remarkable.—London Life.

Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox novelist, but strikes a new and richly-loaded vein which, so far, is all her own; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh sensation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleasant task of reading it is finished. The author's lines must have fallen to her in very pleasant places; or she has, perhaps, within herself the wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so freely into all she writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate the moral tone of the day—a quality sadly wanting in novels of the time.—Whitehall Review, London.

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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

☞The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

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BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

The Golden House. Illustrated by W. T. Smedley. Post 8vo, Ornamental Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00.

It is a strong, individual, and very serious consideration of life; much more serious, much deeper in thought, than the New York novel is wont to be. It is worthy of companionship with its predecessor, "A Little Journey in the World," and keeps Mr. Warner well in the front rank of philosophic students of the tendencies of our civilization.—Springfield Republican.

A Little Journey in the World. A Novel. Post 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 50; Paper, 75 cents.

Their Pilgrimage. Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart. Post 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00.

Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada. Post 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 75.

Our Italy. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.

As We Go. With Portrait and Illustrations. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. ("Harper's American Essayists.")

As We Were Saying. With Portrait and Illustrations. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. ("Harper's American Essayists.")

The Work of Washington Irving. With Portraits. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

☞The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

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By BRANDER MATTHEWS

Vignettes of Manhattan. Illustrated by W. T. Smedley. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50.

In "Vignettes of Manhattan" Mr. Matthews renders twelve impressions of New York with admirable clearness and much grace. From the collection a vivid picture may be drawn of the great city.—N. Y. Evening Post.

Americanisms and Briticisms, with Other Essays on Other Isms. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.

A racy, delightful little book.... It is a long time since we have met with such a combination of keen yet fair criticism, genuine wit, and literary grace.—Congregationalist, Boston.

The Story of a Story, and Other Stories. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.

Studies of the Stage. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.

The Royal Marine. An Idyl of Narragansett Pier. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.

This Picture and That. A Comedy. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

The Decision of the Court. A Comedy. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents. In the Vestibule Limited. A Story. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

☞The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

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WILLIAM BLACK'S NOVELS
LIBRARY EDITION

Mr. Black knows so well just what to describe, and to what length, that the scenery of his novels—by comparison with that of many we are obliged to read—seems to have been freshened by soft spring rains. His painting of character, his conversations and situations, are never strongly dramatic and exciting, but they are thoroughly good. He never gives us a tame or a tiresome chapter, and this is something for which readers will be profoundly grateful.—N. Y. Tribune.

A DAUGHTER OF HETH.	STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON! Illustrated.
A PRINCESS OF THULE.	SUNRISE.
DONALD ROSS OF HEIMRA.	THAT BEAUTIFUL WRETCH. Illustrated.
GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY.	THE MAGIC INK, AND OTHER STORIES. Illustrated.
IN FAR LOCHABER.	THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A HOUSE-BOAT. Ill'd.
IN SILK ATTIRE.	THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.
JUDITH SHAKESPEARE. Illustrated.	THREE FEATHERS.
KILMENY.	WHITE HEATHER.
MACLEOD OF DARE. Ill'd.	WHITE WINGS. Illustrated.
MADCAP VIOLET.	YOLANDE. Illustrated.
PRINCE FORTUNATUS. Ill'd.
SABINA ZEMBRA.
SHANDON BELLS. Illustrated.

12mo, Cloth, $1 25 per volume.
WOLFENBERG.—THE HANDSOME HUMES.
Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 per volume.
HIGHLAND COUSINS.
Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75.
Complete Sets, 26 volumes, Cloth, $30 00: Half Calf, $57 00.

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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

☞The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

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