And, with the prospect of getting out of New York before her, she convalesced rapidly, to the delight of her kind adopted mother, who now set about getting a traveling outfit for Fair.
CHAPTER XVII.
TWO YEARS OF TRAVEL.
Two years went by, in which the working girl so suddenly removed from want to wealth had had dazzling glimpses of a world heretofore seen only in dreams, or read of in romances over which she had pondered with eager eyes.
In those two years she had traveled far and wide over her native land, in the company of her adopted mother, and now they were in England.
During the fall they had traveled through Switzerland, France, and Germany, and just now they were in London, where Mrs. Howard had taken a handsome furnished house for a few weeks. Her present plans were to remain there until the first of November, when she would go to Italy for the winter, as recommended by the clever physician whom she had called in to prescribe for a hacking cough that had begun to trouble her of late.
“The climate of Italy would suit her best for this winter,” he said, and she at once made arrangements, through an agent, to secure a villa in Florence.
She had been fortunate in securing a beautiful place, whose owner, an Italian prince, was going on an American tour. He would be absent all the winter, and did not object to let his magnificent villa to a responsible tenant. The agent wrote Mrs. Howard that she could take possession the first of November.
So she waited in London, and, through the friends with whom she had traveled, made some very agreeable acquaintances among people to whom they had letters of introduction. It was not the London season, but many of the best people were in town, and among them some men of letters whom Mrs. Howard was pleased to meet. At some of the little informal receptions she gave to a privileged few, the grace and beauty of her daughter were enthusiastically admired.
She never thought it necessary to explain to any one that Fair was only an adopted daughter.
“What is the use of explaining everything to strangers whom one meets once or twice, or, at most, only a few times?” she said to Fair one day, adding, a little bitterly, as if the thought were unpleasant: “The distant cousin who is to be my heir will know, and that is enough.”