"Why does he stay in Rome?" said Eva. "Why doesn't he return home?"
"I suppose he doesn't want to go so far away," answered Fanny, vaguely.
"Far away from what? Home should always be the first place," responded the young moralist. "Of course you have told him, mamma, that I shall never be his wife? That it is forever?" And she turned her gray eyes towards her mother, for the first time with a shade of suspicion in them.
"Never is a long word, Eva."
"Oh, mamma!" The girl rose. "I shall write to him myself, then."
"How you speak! Do you wish to disobey me, my own little girl?"
"No; but it is so dishonest; it is like a lie."
"My dear, trust your mother. You have changed once; you may change again."
"Not about this, mamma. Will you please write this very hour, and make an end of it?"
"You are hard, Eva. You do not think of poor Pierre at all."