"Yes; King Pasquino is lord, now, for ten whole days," and she slowly edged her right hand about, to take aim again at Norman. He saw her, and frustrated the attempt by catching it and emptying the contents out upon the floor. The little white balls rolled off to the corners and the little hand fell slowly by Mae's side. "Why not go down to the Corso, you and I, and see the beginning of the fun?" suggested Norman.

"Come along," cried Mae, "you, too, Eric," and the three started off like veritable children, in a delightful, familiar, old-time way. Arrived at their loggia, they found an old woman employed in filling, with confetti, a long line of boxes, fastened to the balustrade of the balcony. Little shovels, also, were provided, for dealing out the tiny missals of war upon the heads below. There were masks in waiting, some to be tied on, while others terminated in a handle, by a skilful use of which they could be made as effective as a Spanish lady's fan. Mae chose one of these latter.

The Corso was alive with vendors of small bouquets and bon-bons and little flying birds tied in live agony to round yellow oranges. The fruit in turn was fastened to a long pole and so thrust up to the balconies as a tempting bait. If bought, the birds and flowers were tossed together into the streets to a passing friend. As Mae was gazing rapturously over the balcony, laughing at the few stragglers hurrying to the Piazza del Popolo, admiring the bannered balconies and gay streamers, several of these little birds were thrust up to her face, some of them peeping piteously and flapping their poor wings. She put up her hands and caught the oranges, one—two—three—four. In a moment she had freed the fluttering birds and tossed the fruit back into the street. "Pay them, Eric," she cried indignantly; "Why, what is this?" for one of the little creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had fallen on the balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her and then lay still in her hands.

"It is dead," said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. "Oh! Mr. Mann, I thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn't there anywhere in this big world where we can get free from such dreadful things? Well!" she added, impatiently, as Norman paused.

"Give a slow fellow who likes the world better than you do, time to apologize for it," replied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up and laughed lightly. "At any rate," suggested he, "let's forget the cruelty now and take the fun. Three of them are safe and very likely this scrap," and he touched the dead bird in her hand, "is flying to rejoin his brothers in hunting-grounds that are stocked with angle-worms, and such game. We are to have a good time to-day, you and I."

At this moment Eric rushed up. "Say, Mann," he cried, "here they come. They have taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And Miss Hopkins looks perfectly in a white veil. And oh! here are the rest of our own party."

Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of the street, but they did not fall to the level of the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped by something above. At a high, fourth-story window, beyond the circle of flying fun and frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a wonderful woman's face, a face with great dark eyes and raven hair. A heavily-figured white lace veil was pulled low over her brow, and fell in folds against her cheeks. Her skin was white, the scarlet of her face concentrating in her lips.

There was a strange consonance between the creamy heavy lace and its flowing intertwined figures, and the face it encircled. A mystery, a grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a vivid dream, in its combination of clearness and unreality. There was life, with smothered passion and pride and pain in it, Mae was sure. So near to her that her voice could have arched the little distance easily, and yet so far away from her life and all that touched it.

A gentleman attending the lady whispered to her. She bent her eyes on Mae, and met her glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously back.

Mae had been looking for Bero all that afternoon. She felt sure he would be there, and very soon she saw him among a crowd of officers sauntering slowly down the Corso. He looked up at the window opposite. The veiled lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and waved her white hand. Bero bowed. So did the other officers.

Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves long enough to dash over to welcome their friends and then stayed on for a little chat. These young women were quite gorgeous in opera cloaks and tiny, nearly invisible, American flags tucked through their belts. They tossed confetti down on every one's heads, and shouted—a little over-enthusiastically, but one can pardon even gush if it is only genuine. That was the question in this case.

The horse race came; and Mae went fairly wild. When it was over, every body prepared to go home. King Pasquino had virtually abdicated in favor of the Dinner Kings. Mae unclasped her tightly strained hands, clambered down from a chair she had perched herself on, smiled a good-bye at the veiled lady, and came away. She rode home quietly with a big bouquet of exquisite blue violets in her hand. There was a rose on top and a fringe of maiden's hair at the edge, and the bouquet was flung from Bero's own hand up at the side window on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when everyone else but Mae was out on the Corso balcony.

"It is dreadful to grow old," said Mae, breaking silence, as the carriage clattered over the stony streets.

"My dear," expostulated Edith, "you surely don't call yourself old. What do you mean?"

"I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon and just think with a smack of the lips, 'My! how good this is.' But here I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and forgetting, except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to separate false from true, and gold from gilt. Still, what is the use of this stuff now! I'll remember that horse race, for there I did forget myself and everything but motion. How I would like to be a horse!" And the volatile Mae seized the stems of her bouquet for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant expressive click-click to her lips as if she were spurring that imaginary steed herself.

Norman smiled. "We can't keep children for ever, even—"

"The silliest of us?"

"Even the freshest and blithest."

"O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book," said Mae; "don't be goody-goody to-night."

"What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady Pasquino?"

"Waltz," said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and Norman and Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to water, and outdanced the singers.

"Thank you," said Mae, smiling up at him. "This has done me good." She pushed the brown hair back from her forehead and drew some deep breaths and leaned back in her chair, still tapping her eager, half-tired foot against the floor, while Norman fanned her with his handkerchief.

This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady and Miss Hopkins and every other confusing thought floated off, and left them quite happy for—well—say for ten minutes.

And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is worth waiting for, old and cynical people say.

* * * * *

The next morning brought back all her troubles, with variations and complications, on account of some more misunderstood words.

"I think," said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home letter, "that likes and dislikes are very similar, don't you, Edith?" Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that her friend's chair was occupied by Norman Mann. He looked up also and smiled.

"I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested in your theory all the same. Only, as I am a man, I shall require you to show up your reasons."

"Well, I find that people who affect me very intensely either way, I always feel intuitively acquainted with. I know what they will think and how they will act under given conditions, and I believe we are driven into friendship or strong dislikes more by the force of circumstances than by—"

"Elective affinities or any of that nonsense," suggested Norman Mann.

"Yes," said Mae, nodding her head, and repeating her original statement under another form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to the conversation. "Yes, a natural acquaintance may develop into your best friend or your worst foe." She started on page number eleven of her letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink-stand and giving such a particular flourish to her right arm, as to nearly upset the bouquet of flowers at her side. It was Bero's gift. Norman Mann put out his hand to save it. His fingers fell in among the soft flowers and touched something stiff. It felt like a little roll of paper. Indignantly and surprisedly he pulled it out. "What is this?" he cried.

Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame. "It is mine," she said.

"Did you put it here?" asked Norman.

"No."

"Then how do you know it is yours? Is not this a carnival bouquet, idly tossed from the street to the balcony?"

Mae straightened to her utmost height which wasn't lofty then and said hastily: "Mr. Mann, this is utterly absurd, and more. I am not a child, and if I catch an idly flung bouquet that holds idle secrets, I surely have a right to them." She laughed hurriedly. "Come, give me my note,—some Italian babble, I dare say."

Norman looked at her for a minute with a struggle in his heart and a flash of half scorn, Mae thought, on his face. What was he thinking?

That the child was in danger. He had no doubt in his own mind now that the flowers and the note came from Bero and that Mae knew it. He held the paper crushed in his hand, while he looked at her.

"I presume you will never forgive me," he said, "but I must warn you, not as a mentor or even as a friend," noticing her annoyed air, "but as one soul is bound to warn another soul, seeing it in danger. Take care of yourself, and there!" And taking the crushed note between his two hands, he deliberately tore it asunder and threw the halves on the table before her.

"And there, and there, and there!" cried Mae, tearing the fragments impetuously, and scattering the sudden little snow flakes before him. Then, with a look of supreme contempt, she left the room.

Norman looked down on the white heap that lay peacefully at his feet. "I am a fool," he thought.

"Little Mae Madden, little Mae Madden, I am so sorry for you," repeated that excited bit of womankind to herself in the silence of her own room. "What won't they drive you to yet? How dreadful they think you are? And only last night we thought things were all coming around beautifully!"

And she looked at herself pityingly in the glass. A mirror is a dangerous thing for a woman who has come to pity herself. She sees the possibilities of her face too clearly. And Mae, looking into the mirror then, realized to an extent she never had before, that her eyes and mouth might be powerful friends to herself and foes to Norman Mann, if she so desired. And to-day she did so desire, and went down to the Carnival with as reckless and dangerous a spirit as good King Pasquino could have asked.

The details of this day were very like those of the last. Norman and Eric vibrated between the Madden and Hopkins balconies; the crowd was great; confetti and flowers filled the air; and up above it all, circled by her crown of misty, heavy lace-work, shone out the beautiful, wonderful face of the strange lady. She dropped smiles from under her long black lashes and from the corners of the rare, sweet mouth over the heads of the idlers to Mae, who looked up to catch them. There was a resting, almost saving influence, Mae's excited soul believed, in the strange face; and her eyes sought it constantly. She had been quite oblivious to the friends about this beautiful stranger, but once, as her eyes sought the Italian's, she saw her arise with a sudden flash of light on her face, and hold out a white hand. A head bent over it, and as it lifted itself slowly, Mae saw once more the well-known features of the Signor Bero.

She looked down toward the street quickly and a sharp pain filled her heart.

She had lost her only friend in Rome, so the silly girl said to herself. If he knew that wonderful woman, and if she flashed those weary, great eyes for him, how could he see or think of any other? Moreover, it was very vexatious to have him there. If she smiled up at the girl, Bero might think she was watching him, trying to attract his notice. So Mae appeared very careless and played she did not see him at all, at all. Yet she could not resist looking up now and then for one of the rare smiles. They seemed like very far between "nows and thens" to Mae, averaging possibly a distance of four minutes apart. But that is as one counts time by steady clock-ticks, and not by heart-beats.

Meanwhile, what could she do with her eyes? They would wander once in a while over to the opposite balcony, at just such moments as when Norman Mann was picking up Miss Rae's fan and receiving her thanks for it from under her drooped eyelids, or choosing a flower for himself, "the very, very prettiest, Mr. Mann," before she threw the rest to the winds and the passing gallants.

As Mae grew reckless her eyes grew bright. There were few passers-by who were not attracted by the flash of those eyes. The sailor lads, as they trundled past in their ship on wheels, left the barrels of lime from which they had been pelting the pleasure-seekers to throw whole handfuls of flowers up to the Jesu e Maria balcony; a set of hale young Englishmen picked out their prettiest bonbons for the same purpose; and one elderly, pompous man, who drove unmasked and with staring opera glasses up and down the Corso, quite showered her with bouquets, which he threw so poorly, and with such a shaky old hand, that the street gamins caught them all except such as he craftily flung so that they might assuredly tumble back to the carriage again. And Mae, though she had felt the pleased gaze of a good many eyes before, had never quite put its meaning plainly to herself. She was apt, on such occasions, to feel high-spirited, excited, joyous, but now she realized well that she was being admired, and she led on for victory ardently.

She tossed back little sprays of flowers, or quiet bonbons, or now and then mischievously let drop a sprinkling of confetti balls through her half-closed fingers. To do this she drooped her hand low over among the balcony trimmings, following the soft shower with her eyes, as some straight soldier would wipe the tiny minie balls from his face and glance up to see where they came from. If he looked up once, he never failed to look again, and generally darted around the nearest corner to return with his offering, in the shape of flowers or other pretty carnival nonsense. Mae rather satisfied her conscience, which was tolerably fast asleep for the time being, at any rate, with the fact that she didn't smile at these strangers—she only looked!

Her pleasure was heightened by the knowledge that she was watched. If she glanced across quickly, Miss Rae's eyes were invariably fixed on her and Norman Mann would be gazing in the opposite direction in the most suspicious manner. From above her strange friend leaned over admiringly and once, as Mae looked joyously upwards, clapped her white hands softly together, while beyond her a tall figure stood motionless, Mae had pretended not to see Bero yet, but as the Italian applauded her in this gentle manner, her eyes sought his involuntarily. He was gazing very fixedly and rapturously down on her, without any apparent thought of the beautiful girl by his side. After that, Mae looked up often, in a glad, childlike way, for spite of this first lesson in wholesale coquetry, and the new conflict of emotions within her mind, she was enjoying herself with the utter abandon of her glad nature.

Toward the close of the afternoon, the Italian was suddenly surrounded by a great mass of flowers, over which she waved her hand caressingly and pointed down at Mae. "For you," the gesture seemed to say. The veiled lady appeared to summon several of her friends, for a number of gentlemen left the other window and its group of girls, and began the difficult task of attempting to toss the bouquets from their height down to Mae. This was rendered the more difficult as the Madden balcony was covered, and the best shots succeeded in landing their trophies on this awning, where they were speedily captured and drawn in by the occupants of the next flat, an ogre of an old woman and her hook-nosed daughter, who wore an ugly green dress and was otherwise unattractive.

The entire Madden party became interested and stood looking on with the most encouraging smiles. The very last bouquet was vainly thrown, however, and gathered in by the ogre, when Bero suddenly appeared, a little behind the party in the window. The flowers in his hand were of the same specimens as those he had given Mae the day before, although different in arrangement. He lifted the bouquet quickly to his lips, so quickly that perhaps only Mae understood the motion, and flung it lightly forward. Mae leaned over the balcony, reaching out her eager hands, and caught it in her very finger tips. The party above bowed and applauded, as she raised the flowers triumphantly to her face.

So the second day of the Carnival was a success, till they turned their backs on the Corso. In the carriage Mrs. Jerrold spoke gently but firmly to Mae. "Be a little more careful, dear; don't let your spirits carry you quite away during these mad days." Mae smiled, but was silent.

"What a strangely beautiful girl that was in the gallery opposite," Edith said, a moment later. "I wonder if she is engaged to that superb man; I fancied I had seen him before. Why, Mae, what in the world are you blushing at?" For Mae's face was scarlet. "Why, nothing," replied Mae, redder yet; "nothing at all. What do you mean?"

The same thought occurred to Edith and Albert. The officer was Mae's chance acquaintance. They both looked grave, and Albert remarked: "It is as well to be careful before getting up too sudden an acquaintance with your Italian girl. Take care of your eyes."

"Has it come to this?" cried Mae, half jestingly, half bitterly. "Are nor my very eyes my own? I shall feel, Albert, as if you were trying to bind me in that chain you threatened," and Mae started: her fingers had felt another scrap of paper among the flowers, but she did not drop it from the carriage, as her first impulse was; she held it tight and close in her warm right hand until she was fairly at home and safe in her own room. Then she opened and read in an Italian hand, "To my little Queen of the Carnival."

Could he have written that as he stood by the wonderful veiled lady, with her white mysterious beauty, with the purple shadows about her dark eyes, while she—and Mae looked in her glass again. What did she see? Certainly a different picture, but a picture for all that. Life and color and youth, a-tremble and a-quiver in every quick movement of her face, in the sudden lifting of the eyelids, the swift turn of the lips, the litheness and carelessness of every motion; above and beyond all, the picture possessed that rare quality which some artist has declared to be the highest beauty, that picturesque charm which shines from within, that magnetic flash and quiver which comes and goes "ere one can say it lightens."

The veiled lady's face was stranger, more mysterious, to an artistic or an imaginative mind; but youth, and intense life, and endless variety usually carry the day with a man's captious heart, and so Bero called Mae

"My little Queen of the Carnival."



CHAPTER VIII.

Mae's good times were greatly dimmed after this by the thought that she was watched. The bouquets which came daily from Bero troubled her also not a little. They were invariably formed of the same flowers, and might easily attract Edith's attention and possible suspicion. So she stayed home from the Corso one day not long after, when she was in a particularly Corso-Carnival mood. She wandered helplessly about, restless and full of desire to be down at the balcony with the rest. And such a strange thing is the human heart, that it was Norman Mann's face she saw before her constantly, and she found Miss Rae's little twinkling sort of eyes far more haunting than those of her veiled friend.

The rich life in Mae's blood was surging in her veins and must be let off in some way. If she had had her music and a piano she might have thrown her soul into some great flood-waves of harmony. The Farnesina frescoes of Cupid and Psyche over across the Tiber would have helped her, but here she was alone, and so she did what so many "fervent souls" do—scribbled her heart out in a colorful, barbarous rhyme. Mae had ordinarily too good sense for this, too deep a reverence for that world of poetry, at the threshold of which one should bow the knee, and loose the shoe from his foot, and tread softly. She didn't care for this to-day. She plunged boldly in, wrote her verse, copied it, sent it to a Roman English paper, and heard from it again two days later, in the following way.

The entire party were breakfasting together, when Albert suddenly looked up from his paper and laughed. "Look here," he cried. "Here is another of those dreadful imitators of the Pre-Raphaelite school. Hear this from a so-called poem in the morning's journal:

'The gorgeous brown reds Of the full-throated creatures of song.'"

"I don't see anything bad in that," said Eric, helping himself to another muffin. "What is the matter with you?"

"Matter enough," returned Albert. "Because their masters, sometimes, daub on colors with their full palettes and strong brushes, this feeble herd tag after them and flounder around in color and passion in a way that is sickening."

"Go on," shouted Eric, "he is our own brother, Mae, after all, you see. Fancy my Lord Utilitarian turning to break a lance in defence of beauty. Edith, you and the picture-galleries are to blame for this."

Mae had been paying great attention to her rolls and coffee, and very little apparently to the conversation, but she spoke eagerly now. "Their masters do not daub. They do hold palettes full of the strongest, richest colors, and dare lay them, in vivid flecks, on their canvas. They do not care if they may offend some modern cultivated eyes, used only to the invisible blues and shadowy greens and that host of cold, lifeless, toneless grays, of refined conventional art. They know well enough that their satisfying reds and browns and golds of rich, free nature will go to the beating hearts of some of us."

Mae had a way of dashing into conversation abruptly, and the Madden family had been brought up on argument and table-talk. So the rest of the party ate their breakfast placidly enough. "Mae's right," said Eric, a trifle grandly, "only, to change the figure of speech for one better fitted for the occasion, they may satiate, though they never starve you. But they are wonderfully fine, sometimes. O, bother, I never can quote, but there is something about 'I will go back to the great sweet mother."'

"Or this," suggested Mae,

"'And to me thou art matchless and fair As the tawny sweet twilight, with blended Sunlight and red stars in her hair.'"

"I love my masters," continued this young enthusiast, "because they fling all rules aside, and cry out as they choose. It is their very heart's blood and the lusty wine of life that they give you, not just a scrap of 'rosemary for remembrance' and a soothing herb-tea made from the flowers of fancy they have culled from those much travestied, abominable fields of thought."

"And this from a lover of Wordsworth, who holds the 'Daffodils' and 'Lucy' as her chief jewels, and quotes the 'Immortality' perpetually!" cried Eric. "If any body ever wandered up and down those same fields of thought, by more intricate, labyrinthine passages and byways, I'd like to know of him. Talk about soothing herbs, bless me, it's hot catnip-tea, good and strong, that he serves up in half of his strings about—"

"O, Eric, hush," cried Mae, "I am afraid for you with such words on your lips. Think of Ananias."

"Before you children go wandering off on one of your poet fights," broke in Albert, "let me take you to task, Mae, for stealing; that lusty wine you talked of just now is in the poem (?) I hold in my hand."

"Do read it to us," said Edith, "and let us judge for ourselves." So Albert began:

ALL ON A SUMMER'S DAY.

"Far away the mountains rise, purpling and joyous, Through the half mist of the warm pulsing day, while nigh At hand gay birds hang swinging and floating And waving betwixt earth and sky, Ringing out from ripe throats A sensuous trickling of notes, That fall through the trees, Till caught by the soft-rocking breeze They are borne to the ears of the maiden.

Her eyes wander after the sound, And glimpses she catches along Through green broad-leaved shadows, Through sunbeams gold-strong, Of the gorgeous brown reds of the full-throated creatures of song. One hand on her brown bosom rests, Rising and falling with every heart-beat Of the delicate, slow-swelling breasts.

A lily, proud, all color of amber and wine, Waves peerless there, by right divine Queen o'er the moment and place. As the wind bends her coaxingly, Brushes softly the maiden's white hand— That falls with an idle grace, Listlessly closed at her side— With a rippling touch, such as the tide, Rising, leaves on a summer day, On the quiet shore of some peaceful bay.

There she stands in the heavily-bladed grass, Under the trumpet-vine, Drinking long, deep, intoxicate draughts Of Nature's lusty, live wine. There he sees her as he approaches; Then pauses, as full on his ear There swells, on a sudden, loud and clear, A wonderful burst of song.

A mad delicious glory; a rainbow rhythm of life, Strong and young and free, a burst of the senses all astrife, Each one fighting to be first, While above, beyond them all, Loud a woman's heart makes call."

"Now, fire ahead," said Eric, "get your stones ready. Mrs. Jerrold, pray begin; let us put down this young parrot with her 'lusty, live wine.'"

"Her?" exclaimed Edith. "Him, you mean."

"Not a bit of it; a woman wrote that, didn't she?"

Eric was very confident. Norman agreed with him, and he glanced at Mae to discover her opinion. There was a look of secret amusement in her face, and a dim suspicion entered his mind, which decided him to watch her closely.

"Well," said Mrs. Jerrold, "I will be lenient. You children may throw all the stones. It is not poetry to my taste. There's no metre to it, and I should certainly be sorry to think a woman wrote it."

"Why?" asked Mae, quickly, almost commandingly. Norman glanced at her. There was a tiny rosebud on each cheek.

"Because," replied Mrs. Jerrold, "it is too—too what, Edith?"

"Physical, perhaps," suggested Edith.

"It is a satyr-like sort of writing," suggested Norman.

"I should advise this person," said Edith—

"To keep still?" interrupted Eric.

"No, to go to work; that is what he or she needs."

"That is odd advice," said Mae; "suppose she—or he—is young, doesn't know what to do, is a traveler, like ourselves, for instance."

"There are plenty of benevolent schemes in Rome, I am sure," said Edith, a trifle sanctimoniously.

"And there's study," said Albert, "art or history. Think what a chance for studying them one has here. Yes, Edith is right—work or study, and a general shutting up of the fancy is what this mind needs."

"I disagree with you entirely," said Norman with energy. "She needs play, relaxation, freedom." Then he was sorry he had said it; Mae's eyes sparkled so.

"She needs," said Eric, pushing back his chair, "to be married. She is in love. That's what's the matter. Read those two last lines, Albert:

'While above, beyond them all, Loud a woman's heart makes call.'

"Don't you see?"

"O, wise young man," laughed Edith. But Mae arose. The scarlet buds in her cheeks flamed into full-blown roses. "There speaks the man," she cried passionately, "and pray doesn't a woman's heart ever call for anything but love—aren't life and liberty more than all the love in the world? Oh!" and she stopped abruptly.

"Well, we have wasted more time than is worth while over this young, wild gosling," laughed Albert. "Let us hope she will take our advice."

Mae shook her head involuntarily. There was a smile on Norman Mann's lips.

"Here's health and happiness to the poor child at any rate," he said.

"He pities me," thought Mae, "and I hate him." But then she didn't at all.

Mae wandered off to the kitchen, as usual, that day, for another of Lisetta's stories. The Italian, with her glibness of tongue and ready fund of anecdote, was transformed in her imaginative mind into a veritable improvisatore. Talila was not by any means the only heroine of the little tales. Mae had made the acquaintance of many youths and maidens, and to-day Lisetta, after thinking over her list of important personages, chose the Madre Ilkana as the heroine of the occasion. Mae had already heard one or two amusing incidents connected with this old mother. "I am sure she has a cousin in America," she asserted to-day, before Lisetta began, "for I know her well. She knits all the time, and is as bony as a ledge of rocks, and her eyes are as sharp as her knitting-needles, and her words are the sharpest of all. Her name is Miss Mary Ann Rogers. Is she like the Madre Ilkana?"

Lisetta shook her head. "No, no, Signorina, La Madre is as plump and round as a loaf of bread, and as soft as the butter on it. She has five double chins that she shakes all the while, but then she has stiff bristles, like a man's, growing on them, and her knitting-needles and her words are all sharp as la Signora Maria Anne R-o-o-g-eers, I doubt not. But her eyes! Why, Signorina, she has the evil eye!" This Lisetta said in a whisper, while Giovanni shrugged his shoulders bravely, and little Roberto cuddled closer to Mae.

"Yes," continued Lisetta, "and so no one knows exactly about her eyes, not daring to look directly into them, but as nearly as I can make out they are black, and have a soft veil over them, so that you would think at first they were just about to cry, when suddenly, fires creep up and burn out the drops, and leave her hot and angry and scorching.

"She must be terrible," cried Mae, with a sudden shrinking.

"She IS terrible," replied Lisetta, "but then she is very clever. You will see if she is not clever when you hear the story I shall now tell you," and Lisetta laughed, and showed her own one double chin, with its two little round dimples. Then she smoothed down her peasant apron, bade Giovanni leave off pinching Roberto, and commenced.

"The government hates the banditti," began Lisetta, wisely, "and indeed it should," and she looked gravely at Giovanni, "for they are very wild men, who live reckless bad lives, and steal, and are quite dreadful. But we poor, we do not hate them as the government does, because they are good to us, and do not war with us, and sometimes those we love join them—a brother or a cousin, perhaps,"—and Lisetta's black eyes filled, and her lip quivered. "As for the Madre, she loved them all, and said they were all relations.

"At this time of which I speak, the soldiers were chasing and hunting the banditti very hard, and they had been compelled to hide for their lives up among the mountains. There they would have died, had it not been for the peasants, who supplied them with food. Small parties of the bandits would come out for it. There were two very powerful men of the banditti, who were skirmishing about in this way, not far from the Madre Ilkana's, when they saw two soldiers, in advance of their company, approaching them. The banditti were not afraid for themselves, but they wanted to get back to their friends with the bread and meat, so instead of fighting, they fled to the Madre. She took them in, and bade them be sure they were safe with her. But the soldiers had caught sight of them, and they stopped at every house and enquired and searched for them; and so, soon they came to the Madre Ilkana's. They charged her in the name of the government to give up the banditti in her house. The Madre kept on with her knitting, and told them there were only her two sons in the house, and mothers never gave up their sons to any one.

"'Ha!' laughed one of the soldiers,' mothers must give up their children to King Death, and it is He who wants your bad boys.' Upon which, the Madre arose and cursed them. Curses are common with us, Signorina, but not La Madre's curses. She talked of their mothers to them, and of their sons, and of the Holy Virgin and child, and she cursed them in the name of all these, if they dared steal her children from her. They should take them over her old dead body, she swore, though her knitting-needles and her eyes were her only weapons, and then she turned her eyes full upon them, with the evil spirit leering and laughing out of them, and the soldiers, one of whom was an officer, fell on their knees and shook like leaves, and prayed her to forgive them; saying that they were sure her boys were good sons, and no banditti. And while they knelt crouching there, La Madre knocked on the floor and in rushed the banditti, armed with great knives. They caught and bound the two soldiers, and took away their weapons, and jumped on their horses, and fled.

"La Madre took her knitting again, and sat down quietly by the side of the bound men, until a half hour later some twelve more soldiers cantered up. As they rode by, all the people came to their doorways, and the soldiers stopped and asked if they had seen two horsemen. Then La Madre gathered up her knitting and went quietly out into the crowd. She made a low bow to the man with the biggest feather in his cap, and she told him her story. 'I have two sons,' she said, 'whom I love so well.' Then she told how the soldiers mistook her sons for banditti, and tried to take them from her in her own house. 'Though I am old, I have a good life among my friends and neighbors here, and I fought a while in my own mind before I said to my sons: Go, my boys, your mother will die for you. But I did it. I bade them bind the soldiers and steal away. Then I sat guarding the men till you came. You will find them safe in my little house there. Now, take me to prison—kill me, but look in my eyes first, and then, whoever lays a hand on me, take La Madre Ilkana's curse.'

"And the people all swore that there were two snakes coiled up in La Madre's eyes then, and they hissed, and struck out with their fiery tongues, and the crowd fell on their knees, and the neighbors all set up a great shout of 'La Madre Ilkana,' so that they quite drowned the voice of the man with the big feather."

"Is that all?" asked Mae, as Lisetta paused. "What did the soldiers do?"

"O, they hired a passing carriage to take the men whose horses were stolen back to Castellamare, and they all cantered off, without saying a word to La Madre, and when they had turned a corner of the road, she began to laugh. O, how she laughed! All the people laughed with her, and the children crowed and the dogs barked, for the rest of that whole day.

"And a neighbor who passed La Madre's at midnight, said she was laughing out loud then."



CHAPTER IX.

"Signorina." Mae was passing down the long hall when she heard the whisper. She turned and saw Lisetta, with shining eyes and pink cheeks, standing at her side. Her pretty plump shoulders were only half covered, and the array of colors about her transformed her into a sort of personified rainbow. This was Lisetta's Carnival attire, and very proud she was of it.

"Why, Lisetta, what do you want, and what makes you so happy?" called Mae.

"O, Signorina, the cousins are here,—and others,—all in mask. They fill Maria's rooms quite full. It is very gay out there, and they all want to see you, Signorina. I have told them how well you speak Italian and how you love Italy, and to-night, they say, you shall be one of us. So come." All this while Lisetta had been leading Mae swiftly down the corridor, until as she said these last words, she reached and pushed open the door. A great shout of laughter greeted Mae's ear, and a pretty picture met her eyes—gaily decked youths and maidens clapping their hands and chattering brightly, while the padrona was just entering the opposite doorway, bearing two flasks of native wine, and some glasses.

"'Tis genuine Orvieto," she called out, and this raised another shout. Then she caught sight of Mae and bowed low towards her. "Here is the little foreign lady," she cried, and a dozen pairs of big black eyes were turned eagerly and warmly on Mae. She bowed and smiled at them, and said in pleading tones, "O, pray do not call me the 'little foreign lady' now. Play I am as good an Italian as my heart could wish I were."

This speech was received with new applause, and the padrona handed around the glasses saying: "We must drink first to the health of our new Italian. May she never leave us."

"Yes, yes," called Lisetta, lifting high her glass. "Yes, yes," cried all, and Mae drank as heartily as any of them. Then she shook her head and gazed very scornfully down on her dark, stylish clothes. "I am not thoroughly Italian yet," she cried. "Here, and here, and here," cried one and another, proffering bits of their own gay costumes, and in a moment Mae had received all sorts of tributes—a string of red beads from one, a long sash from another, a big-balled stiletto from a third, so that she was able from the gleanings to trim herself up into at least a grotesque and un-American Carnival figure. Then the Italians with their soft tongues began to flatter her.

"How lovely the Signorina would look in a contadina costume—the home costume," said Lisetta gravely. "It is so beautiful, is it not?" And then those two or three privileged ones, who had seen Lisetta's home, went into ecstasies over its many charms. Lisetta, next to the Signorina, was the heroine of the occasion. She was from a distance, was handsome and clever, and the padrona gave glowing accounts of her full purse, and two pretty donkeys, and house by the sea.

They had a very gay time. Such singing, and then dancing and frolicking, and such a feline softness in all their gaiety. None of the German or Saxon bullying, and barking and showing of teeth; in no wise a game of dogs, which always ends in a fight; but a truly kittenish play, with sharp claws safely tucked out of sight behind the very softest paws, and a rich, gentle curve of motion, inexpressibly witching to our little northern maiden, who was fast losing her head amid it all. Mae did not reflect that felines are treacherous. She only drew a quick, mental picture of the parlor on the other side of the hall, which she compared to this gay scene. Mrs. Jerrold filling in dull row after row of her elaborate sofa cushion, which was bought in all its gorgeousness of floss fawn's head and bead eyes, Edith and Albert hard at work over their note books, or reading up for the sights of to-morrow, Mr. Mann with his open book also, all quiet and studious. Eric, alone, might be softly whistling, or writing an invitation to Miss Hopkins to climb up St. Peter's dome with him, or to visit the tomb of Cecilia Metella, or the Corso, as the case might be, while here—

As Mae reached this point in her musings, the Italians were forming for a dance, so she sprang up to join them. Two or three peasants from the country south had wandered up with the world to Rome, for Carnival time, then for Lent. They had brought with them their pipes and zitterns. In the mornings they made short pilgrimages, playing in front of the shrines about the city, or roaming out on the campagna to some quiet church. In the evening time they wandered up the stone stairways of the great houses, and paused on the landings before the different homes. If all was still they passed on, but if there was noise, laughter, sound of voices, they laid aside their penitential manner, and struck into dance music, flashing their velvety eyes, and striking pretty attitudes, aided greatly by their Alpine hats and sheep-skins and scarlet-banded stockings.

Three of these peasants had appeared at the padrona's doorway, by a sort of magic. They bowed and smiled, and commenced to play. Every one sprang up. "Dance," cried they all, and flew for their partners. Mae found herself in the midst of the crowd, and having the most willing and nimble of feet, she soon toned and coaxed the fashionable waltz on which she had started into accord with the more elastic footsteps of her companion. There was something in the serpentine, winding and unwinding motion, the coaxingness of the steps, that was deliciously intoxicating to Mae. The color came to her cheeks, the smile played around her lips, and when she paused to breathe, she found the Italians showing their white teeth, and clapping their brown hands in her honor, while the tallest musician gazed at her from the dark doorway, with the rapt reverence he gave to all things beautiful and thrilling. She was a new song to him.

"The Signorina is the veriest Italian of us all," cried Lisetta.

"She honors our Italy," called Mae's last partner.

"Her feet are those of a chamois," said one from the north.

"Nay, she flies," replied another.

They all spoke in their earnest manner, and the praises, that fall in fulsome flattery in English, were delicate and stimulating as they slid in soft Italian from their full, red lips. Mae tossed her head carelessly, but she sipped the praises and found them sweet.

"Now for the Tarantella," said the padrona, so Lisetta shook her tambourine wildly, and the very prettiest girl of them all, and a big, brown boy (happy fellow!) began that coquettish bit of witchery. The pretty girl tripped around and around and wreathed her arms over her head, and the boy knelt appealingly and sprang up passionately again and again, until the clock struck ten, and the party broke up. Mae shook hands with a new friend. He was a stone-cutter, and was soon to be married, and he poured out all his plans and hopes into her sympathetic ears, and told of his pretty bride to be, and of her dowry. Mae, in turn, sent her love to the happy bride, and took a charm from her watch-chain to go with it, a tiny silver boat, and she sent it with a hope that some day they might both sail over to America. At which the bridegroom shook his head very decidedly, and kissed Mae's hand and bowed himself out. Then, after she had disrobed her of her borrowed plumes, all the others kissed her hand and bowed themselves out, and Roberto and Giovanni awaked, and got up from the corner, and stood on their heads and hallooed as loud as ever they pleased, and the evening was over, and Lisetta and the padrona and the boys and Mae were alone.

"Oh, oh, oh," cried Mae, "how perfectly perfect. Do you always have such good times as this?"

"At home, yes," replied Lisetta, folding her hands and smiling. "We have many a play-day on the bay of Naples." Then she roused herself: "Good night, Signorina," she said, "keep your ears open."

Mae had barely reached her room when she appreciated Lisetta's last words. She heard music in the street below. She raised her window; Eric and Norman lifted the parlor window at the same moment, "Come in here," they cried. So in she ran, took a place between them, and they silently listened to the maskers' serenade. The musicians sang at first the gayest of tunes, but suddenly, by some subtile impulse, they changed to quieter minor airs, and sang songs full of tears and passion and love and tenderness. Then they silently turned to go. Norman Mann touched Mae on the shoulder. He handed her a bunch of Carnival flowers. They were Bero's, but she flung them unhesitatingly into the street, leaning far out to watch the singers catch them and separate them in the moonlight. They called out loud their thanks—their "Grazie, grazie," as sweet as any lily just broken from its stem—and as they turned to go Mae saw that each one was decked with a sprig from the bouquet, pulled through his button-hole or the riband of his hat.

Only the tallest musician, who walked somewhat apart, carried his flower tightly clasped in his hand, and now and again he raised it to his lips. He probably dreamed over it that night, and played his dream out in a gentle, wistful, minor adoration before the Madonna at the Quattro Fontane the next morning.

O, the dreams and poems and songs without words that drop into our lives from the sudden flash of stranger eyes, or the accidental touch of an unknown hand, or the tender warmth of a swift smile! And if our eyes, our touch, our smiles may only have floated off in like manner—as dreams and poems and melody—to give added rhythm and harmony to other lives.

Mae drew a long sigh, one of those delightful, contented sighs, with a smile wrapped up in it. "I am glad you are so happy," said Norman Mann, smiling down at her. When Norman spoke like that Mae felt only, O, so very content. She quite forgot all grudges against him; she would have liked just at that moment to have the world stand quite still. This was very different from the ordinary Mae. Usually she longed that it might go faster, and would put her pink and white ear quite close to the brown earth to hear if it were turning as swiftly as ever it could. "I like it to hurry, hurry, hurry," said eager, restless Mae. "I love to live quickly and see what's coming next."

But Mae was not in that mood to-night. She leaned out of the window all untroubled. If the sun could stand still off behind the world—as he is now—and the moon could stand still right before us—as she is now—and we could stay right here, we three. Why, no, Eric has gone in and is walking up and down nervously. Thus Mae thought, and was quiet. "What are you thinking about?" asked Norman. She told him naturally, with her eyes on his until she reached the words "and we." Then her eyes fell, and she paused.

"Yes," replied Norman, "I have the same feeling," and there was a great deal more on the very tippest tip of his tongue. But Mae turned her face from him slightly; the moon stole softly behind the flimsiest little cloud that any one could have seen through, and he paused, silly fellow. These slight withdrawals, that should have urged him on, deceived him. He stopped, and then he remembered Mae's past doings, her recklessness, her waywardness. It was not time yet to speak what he had in his heart to say, and what quivered on his tongue. So he only asked abruptly: "You will go with me to-morrow night for one of your gayest frolics, will you not? We will go down on the Corso for all the Mocoletti fun. I am very anxious to be in another of your good times."

"O, would you like it?" said Mae; "I am so glad. I should delight in it. It will be almost too good." She stopped abruptly again, and gave him a quick, soft glance, just as the moon rode triumphantly out from behind the filmy, flimsy veil, and shone full down on her eyes and hair. It fell on a bright, round, glistening ball, tucked in among some half curls behind her ear. "What is that?" asked Norman.

"That"—Mae put up her hand and drew it out—"that is my stiletto. I forgot to give it back to Lisetta. It is pretty, isn't it?"

Norman took the long needle from her hand and looked at it. "It is not as pretty as the flowered stiletto. Why didn't you get one of those?"

"Why, do you not know that those are not worn by free maidens? They are one of the added glories of a matron. I like my round, smooth ball a great deal better. It means liberty." And she plunged the steel tremulously back into her hair.

"We had better go in now; this night air is bad for you." The moon blazed scornfully down on Norman Mann as he said this. She had had a wide experience, and had rarely seen such a stupid, cowardly fellow, so she thought. Yet, after all, Norman only acted in self-defense. Here was a girl by his side who gloried, as it seemed to him, in her freedom, and that being so, he must get away as soon as possible from that window, that moon, and that little girl.

"Well, Norman," cried Eric, advancing eagerly as they turned from the window, "when do you really suppose it will come off?"

"Suppose what will come off?" inquired Mae.

"O, I forgot you were here. Well, don't tell any one else. Norman is to fight a duel."

"To fight a duel—and be killed?" gasped Mae.

"You have but a poor opinion of my powers," laughed Norman, "although the German looked a veteran duellist from his scars. His face was fairly embroidered or fancy-worked with red lines. A sort of hem in his nose, and tucks and seams all over his cheeks. Notice my knowledge in this line, Miss Mae. You ought to be ashamed, Eric, to have spoken of it."

"Isn't it all a joke?" asked Mae, pushing her head out of the window again, to hide the sudden white terror in her face. "I didn't suppose Americans fought duels when they were off pleasuring." This sentence Mae meant to pass as a gay, light, easy speech, to prove that Norman Mann and a duel were not such a very dreadful combination to her feminine mind.

"NO, it is no joke, but dead earnest," replied Eric. "I am to be his second, and you must keep it a great secret, Mae, till it is all over."

"All over!"—a sudden vision of Norman lying white and motionless with a deep wound across his soft, brown temple. Mae closed her eyes. "I suppose I might as well tell you about it," said Norman, "now that this stupid Eric has let out about the affair, although it may never come to anything. I was dining to-night at a little restaurant on the Felice, a quiet, homelike place, which a good many artists, and especially women, frequent. There is a queer, crazy little American, who thinks herself a painter, and is a harmless lunatic, who is a regular guest at this restaurant. Everybody smiles at her absurdities, but is ready enough to be kind to the poor old creature. To-night, however, I was hardly seated when in came a party of Germans, all in mask and Carnival costume. One of them was arrayed in exact imitation of this old lady. He had on a peaked bonnet and long, black gloves, with dangling fingers, such as she invariably wears. These he waved around mockingly and seating himself opposite her, he followed her every motion. The ladies at the same table rose and went away. Then up gets this big ruffian and sits down on the edge of the old lady's chair. I could stand it no longer, but jumping in front of him, showered down all the heavy talk I knew in German, Italian and French, subsiding at last into my mother tongue, with her appropriate epithets. Having sense enough left to know that he could not reap the full benefit of English, I pulled out my card, wrote my address on it, and threw it on the table, and I rather think that was understood. There's no country that I have heard of where men don't know what 'we'll fight this out, means.'" Norman was striding up and down the room now almost as restlessly as Eric had done, but he seated himself again as Mae asked for the rest.

"The rest is very simple, Miss Mae—mere business. I turned to go away, and one of his friends approached me to ask for the name of my second. I gave Eric's here. He bowed and said: 'He shall hear from me this evening, and I came home. The evening has advanced to midnight, but not a word yet. No, it is not quite eleven, I see."

"You'll have the choice of weapons if they challenge you," said Eric; "you'll take pistols, I suppose? Just think of my living to really assist in a 'pistols-and-coffee-for-two' affair!"

"I daresay it will be coffee for two, served separately, and with no thought of pistols. I don't really believe it will come to anything. There are ways of getting out of it," said Norman, lighting a cigarette.

"Will you refuse to fight?" asked Mae, and her heart, which had been white with fear for Norman the second before, flashed now with quick, red scorn. Even the Huguenot maiden would, after all, have despised her lover if he had quietly allowed her to tie the white handkerchief to his arm. Believe it, she loved him far, far better as she clung to him, pressed closely to his warm, living heart, because she realized in an agony that his honor was strong enough to burst even the tender bonds of her dear love, and that he would break from her round arms to rush into that ghostly, ghastly death-embrace on the morrow, at the dreadful knell of St. Bartholomew bells.

Suppose he had yielded. Suppose we saw him in the picture standing quietly, unresistingly, as her soft fingers bound the white badge, that meant protection and life, to his arm. Would not she, as well as he, have known that it was a badge of cowardice, and that he wore a heart as white?

And afterwards, would she have loved the living man, breathing in air heavy with the hearts' life of his brothers and friends, as she worshiped the dead man, whose cold body rested forever down deep in mother earth's brown, soft bosom, but whose very life of life swelled the great throng of heroes and martyrs who have closed their own eyes upon life's pictures, that those pictures might shine clearer and brighter to other eyes?

If the man had yielded, and the picture showed him thus, would we see the Huguenot lovers adorning half the houses of the land? Most often they are found in that particular corner of the home belonging to some maiden—that sacred room of her own, where she prays her prayers, and lives her most secret life. I have often wondered at the many girls who hang that especial picture over their fire-places. It must be a case of unconscious ideality. They realize that love must be so subject to honor that heart-strings would break for the sake of that honor, if need be, even though the harmonious love-song of two hearts is hushed; and what is the love-song of any two beings compared to a life-song of honor for the world—those wonderful life-songs that we all know? One of them sings itself so loudly to me now, over ages of romance and history, that I must let my simple story wait and give way to it for a minute.

There was a man who lived once. If God did not create him, Homer did. The Oracle told him that the first man who put foot on the Trojan shores would die. He knew this before he started on his voyage for Greece. He left a wife and home behind him, whom he dearly loved. I wonder if he used to pace the deck of the rich barge, and listen to the men chatting around him, and smile as they planned of returning, proud and victorious, to their homes and their wives.

All the while under his smile he knew he was to die, not in the glory of fight, although his sword swung sharp and bright at his side, in any thrilling fashion, to be sung of and wept of by his fellows.

All the while the heavy barge sailed on, and at last land came in sight. I wonder if his heart was full when he saw it? Did he remember his wife and his home? Did he feel his life strong within him, and eager as a battle-horse, as he neared the land where wars were to be fought, and glories won?

All the while his heart was firm. He stood the very foremost of them all, as they drifted quite in to the green, green shore. Around him men talked and laughed, and the sun shone. He may have laid his hand commandingly on some youthful shoulders and pushed back the eager boy who longed to bound first into this new world. He may have saved him thus from death for life. We do not know.

All we do know is, that with his own brave feet he marched ahead of them all, solemnly, smilingly, with the oracle in his heart. From the vessel to the green, green shore—such a little step. He leaps from the Grecian barge to the Trojan land, alive. Does he turn to look at his comrades and off eastwards, beyond homewards, with a great thrill before he falls dead? We do not know.

All we do know is, that WE thrill now as we see him leaping to his death, even over this gap of ages, through these shadows of unreality.

We have left Mae flashing scorn at Norman for a long while, a much longer while than she really needed for her flash, for Norman's angry start, violent exclamation, and indignant glance convinced her of her mistake before he answered her.

"I refuse to fight—I—Great—I beg your pardon, Miss Mae, but of course I'll fight. I only hope the fellow isn't such a craven as to let it blow over. However, I strongly suspect policy and his friends will keep him from it. For my part, I would like to break my lance for the poor woman. Any good blow struck for the fair thing, helps old Mother earth a bit, I suppose."

"That's your idea of life?" queried Eric, rather gravely. "My efforts are all to push Eric Madden on his way a bit."

"And I haven't any idea; I just live," said Mae, "like a black and tan dog. I wish I were one. Then the only disagreeable part of me, my conscience, would be out of the way. But what has all this to do with the duel?" "That has something to do with it, I fancy," said Eric, rising and leaving the room hastily, as the bell rang. "No, stay where you are. I'll receive him in the little salon." Mae rose and walked to the fireside, and looked down on the two small logs of wet wood that sizzled on the fire-dogs. The faint, red flame that flickered around them, looked sullen and revengeful, she thought, as she watched the feeble blaze intently. It seemed hours since Eric had left the room. What was Norman thinking? What was the stranger saying out in the little salon? No, no, she would not think thus. She would repeat something to quiet herself—poetry—what should it be? Ah, here is Eric.

It was Eric. His face was flushed. His lip curled. "Coward! craven!" he exclaimed, "Coward, craven."

"Well, tell us about it," said Norman, coolly, but a wave of color rushed over his face.

"O, palaver and stuff. Somebody's dreadfully ill—dying, I believe, and that somebody is wife, or mother, or son to this brute you challenged. He's got to go, the coward. If you are ever in his vicinity again, and send him your card, he will understand it and meet you at such place and with such weapons as you prefer. Bah—too thin!" and Eric concluded with this emphatic statement.

Mae leaned her head against her two clasped hands which rested on the mantel-piece. How strangely everything looked; even the dim fire had a sort of aureole about it, as her eyes rested there again; but when one looks through tears, all things are haloed mistily. Norman turned and looked at Mae, as Eric walked impatiently about. She did not move or speak. He walked to her side, and stood looking down at her. The faint mist in her left eye was forming into a bright, clear globe as large as any April raindrop. Mae knew this, and knew it would fall, unless she put up her hand and brushed it away, and that would be worse. The color rose to her cheeks as she waited the dreadful moment. She was perfectly still, her hands clasped before her, her head bent, as the crystal drop gathered all the mist and halo in its full, round embrace, and pattered down upon the third finger of her left hand—her wedding-ring finger—and lay there, clear and sparkling as a diamond!

Norman Mann stooped and laid his hand over it. "You are glad, then!" "I should be sorry to have you die," said Mae, but her dimples and blushes and drooping eye-lids said, oh, a great deal more. "Good night," she fluttered, and ran off.



CHAPTER X.

Mae dreamed happy dreams that night, and awoke with a smile on her lips. She dressed with the greatest care, put a touch of the color Norman liked at her throat, and fastened a charm he had given her to her bracelet. Still, she loitered on her way to the breakfast-room, and when she seated herself at the table, a sudden embarrassment made her keep her eyes on her plate, or talk to Eric, or Edith, or any one but Norman. Yet she was perfectly conscious of his every word and motion. She knew he only took two cups of coffee instead of three, and that he helped her to mandarins—a fruit of which she was very fond—five times, so that she had a plate heaping with golden untouched balls before her. After breakfast, she felt a great desire to run away, so she asked Eric to take her to the Capitol, and leave her there for a time. "I want to see something solid this morning, that has lasted a long while, and the marbles will do me good."

Yes, Eric would take her at once. Would she go and get her hat? She went for it, and scolded herself all the time for running away when she wanted to stay home. Yet, after all, who dares put out one's hand to grasp the moon when at last it approaches? No woman, at any rate.

There was a malicious sort of teasing pleasure in running away from Norman, mingled with a shrinking modesty; and, besides, he knew the way to the Capitol, if he chose to follow, and knew she was to be there alone. So, on the whole, Mae went off with a blissful heart.

As she sat down in that celebrated room, immortalized by the Gladiator, the Faun and the Antinous, scales seemed to fall from her eyes and a weight from her heart. Life meant something more than the mere play she delighted in, or the labor she despised. She took it in in this way. She realized, first of all, the enduringness of the marbles. They had stood, they will stand, for thousands of years. What have stood? What will stand? Idle blocks of stone, without form or meaning, or simply three beautiful shapes? No; three souls, thinks Mae, three real people, and she looks at the abiding faun, freedom and joy of the Satyr, the continual sentimental sadness of the Antinous, and the perpetual brave death-struggle of the Gladiator. They are living on now, and touching our hearts. Their mute lips open other eloquent mouths to speak for them. Hawthorne and Byron tell us what the Faun's soul, what the Gladiator's soul, look from the white marbles to us, and the world daily repeats the story the Antinous whispers in his bent, beautiful head, the vanitas vanitatum that our own hearts whisper, when we drop earnest life for voluptuous pleasures.

The Faun may smile, although life is only one long play-day in green fields and woods, because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, when he has drained his wine-cups and laughed his heartiest laugh, and wakes to another morning, because he is a man. The cry of humanity echoes in our souls. We cannot stifle it; we may hush it, and follow our idle joys, but the day comes when we bend our head with Antinous and Solomon and the rest of them, and sigh out our vanitas, vanitas also, in the great weary chorus.

No need, alas! for a Hawthorne, or Byron, or even a Shakspeare to interpret what the Antinous says for us. Our own hearts do it.

Mae caught the spirit of all this, as her eyes roamed out of the window on the Sabine hills, where woods and springs sang. She saw the aqueducts bounding, even in their ruin, arch after arch, to the treasure house of the waters. "They never can reach it, now," thinks she, "never. Suppose they cannot, is not the spirit the same?" And now Mae is ready for the sudden light that dawns on her soul. She springs to her feet. She is alone in the room with the marble men; and they are quiet; even the Gladiator bites back his last groan once more.

"The Eternal City," shouts Mae; "I know what it means at last. Oh! Rome, Rome, I love you!" and she rests her hand on the windowsill, and looks out on Rome. "Why, it is like a resurrection morn. Ruins? Yes, it is all ruins, dry bones, and great dead in dust; but there is something more. I only saw that graveyard part of it before; now, the spirit of the great men, and great deeds, and words, and thoughts, and prayers," cries Mae, exultantly. "Why, they are here; not dead, like the rest, but alive, all around us. Oh! Rome, Rome, forgive me!"

Now, this might have seemed absurd to the custode, or some other people, if they had put their head in at the door just then. But they didn't; and, really, it was not absurd. I cannot believe that this small Mae Madden is the only being who has had a swift, brilliant awakening from the first surface, depressing thoughts of Rome—an awakening to the living spirits which float proudly over their vacant shells that lie below the old pavements. Once you do feel the strong, rich Roman life about you, the decay, the ruin float off on the dust of the ages, before the glorified breath of proud matrons and stately warriors, who step over the centuries to walk by your side. And the centuries have improved them,—have left their grandeur, and nobility, and bravery, and civilized them a bit. They form into pageants for you, and fill the baths and the palaces, but never crowd the Coliseum for the dreadful contests, unless, maybe, for an occasional bull-fight—some great, horrid, big bull which would be killed at market to-morrow at any rate—and even that is as you please. It is wonderful, truly, once we discern the spirits around us, to notice what a miraculous place Rome is; how the intervening years of purgatorial flames have turned old Nero himself into a fairly benevolent, soft old gentleman, even though his estates have crumbled to such an extent that he may put his golden palace into the head of his cane, which he always carries now, since his chariots have gone away. Where are they? Caligula has even made it up with his mother-in-law, and you reflect with joy on that fact, as the two flit by your mind's eye, hand in hand. All this nonsense is for those of us who HAVE awakenings. The rest of "our party" may sit at Spillman's and eat coffee-cakes and sip Lachrymae Christi, while we walk alone through the Coliseum, with the crowd of old heathen. They stop, every one, at the iron cross in the middle, reared over their carnage and mad mirth, and press their lips to it now. The centuries have done that. We only, alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and fat letters of credit.

At any rate, Mae Madden was electrified by a great sudden sweep of love, a surging rush of reverence for Rome, and makes no doubt in her own mind, to this day, that the Faun laughed with her in her joy. In this exalted frame of mind, she wandered down through the long halls. She was passing from the room of the Caesars when she heard Norman's voice. So he had come for her with Eric. She had half fancied he would. She paused to listen. It was a ringing elastic voice, in no wise lagging in speech, with a certain measurement in its tones, as if he weighed his words and thoughts, and gave them out generously, pound for pound, a fair measure which our grandmother's recipes approved. Mae smiled to herself. "He has loved Rome always. He caught the spirit of it long ago. He will be glad to know I have found it also. I wish"—and Mae sighed a scrap of a sigh, and looked down at the toe of her boot, with which she drew little semi-circles before her.

Mae was truly in a very tender mood to-day. I think if Norman had caught sight of her face at that moment, he would have sent Eric off, and right there and then, before all the Caesars—why what is the matter? The face contracts as if in pain. What was the cause? She had heard Norman say, "I'm afraid I was wrong, but I never meant anything by my attentions to the girl, Eric. It was really on your account. I never liked Miss Rae particularly. I was thrown much with her because you and I have been together constantly, but she does not grow on me. I never expected you should consider me as her necessary cavalier always. As for this evening, I am engaged to Miss Mae, so that settles this matter, but I wish that hereafter you would not get me into such scrapes."

Poor Mae! she leaned against Nero—or was it Caracalla?—surely somebody very hard and cold and cruel,—and stopped breathing for a moment. For she had heard wrong, had misunderstood Miss Rae for Miss Mae, and supposed it was of herself that he spoke. Her heart stood still for the minutest part of a minute. Then she turned softly and quickly, went back to the Gladiator's room, left word with the custode for Eric that she wasn't well, and had gone home alone, walked off down the Capitol steps, took a cab and drove away.

At home she had a long, earnest talk with Lisetta, after which Lisetta had a short, brisk talk with the padrona. "It means money," she said, "and I can play I did it for the Signorina's safety." Later, Mae wrote a brief, polite note to Norman Mann. She was ill, had gone to bed, and wouldn't be able to go to the Corso with him to-night. She tried to stifle the hot anger and other emotions out of the words, and read and re-read them to assure herself that they were perfectly easy, natural, and polite. At last she tore them up and sent this instead:

MY DEAR MR. MANN:—Such a pity that we are not to have our fun, after all. Yet, perhaps it is just as well. I should be very speedily without my light, and the cry of "senza moccolo, senza moccola," must be very dispiriting. Have a good time right along. Good-bye—good-bye.

Of course, if Mae had not been beside herself with conflicting emotions, she would never have sent this note, or repeated the good-bye in that echoing, departing sort of way. Norman Mann knit his brow as he read it. "What is the row now?" he thought. "What a child it is, anyway. She has had the mocoletti fun in her mind since we left America, and now she throws it away. Well, there's no help for it; I'm booked for Miss Rae. I'll get Eric to see if Mae's really ill. I wonder if she's afraid of me, because she cried last night, afraid I took that big tear for more than it was worth.

"Mae," said Eric, entering her room an hour later, "Norman feels dreadfully that you are not able to go to-night, and so do I. I suppose those wretched marbles did it this morning. Couldn't you possibly come?"

"No," replied Mae, rising on her elbow, "but sit down a moment, Eric."

"How pretty you look," said her brother, seating himself by her side. Mae's hair was tumbled in brown waves that looked as if they couldn't quite make up their minds to curl, much as they wanted to; her eyes shone strangely; and the little scarlet shawl that she had drawn over her head and shoulders was no brighter than her flushed cheeks. She smiled at her brother, but said hurriedly; "Tell me of your plans for to-night. I suppose you and Mr. Mann are going with your new friends."

"Yes, Norman will go with me and the girls, but he does it with a bad enough grace. He's dreadfully tired of Miss Rae; and, to tell you the truth, Mae, she is rather namby-pamby—very different from Miss Hopkins, and then, besides, he had so set his heart on going with you to-night."

"O, yes," said Mae, scornfully, and bit her lips.

"Why, Mae, what is the matter with you? You seem to doubt every one and everything. You know Norman is truth itself." "Is he?" asked Mae, indifferently.

"I've seen for a long time," continued Eric, "that you two were not the friends you once were, but I don't understand this open dislike. Doesn't it spoil your pleasure? You don't seem to have the real old-fashioned good times, my little girl," and Eric pulled his clumsy dear hand through a twist of the brown hair caressingly.

"O, Eric," cried Mae, "that is like old times again," and a tear splattered down into the big hand. "What, crying, Mae?" "No, dear—that is, yes. I believe I am a little bit homesick. I wish I could go back behind my teens again. Do you remember the summer that I was twelve—that summer up by the lake? I wish you and I could paddle around in one of the old flat-bottomed tubs once more, don't you, Eric? We'd go for lilies and fish for minnows—that is, we'd fish for perch and catch the minnows—and talk about when you should go to college and pull in the race, and I should wear a long dress and learn all the college tunes to sing with you and your Yale friends. Do you remember, Eric? And now, O dear me, you lost your race, and I hate my long gowns. O—my—dear—brother—do you like it all as well as you thought you would?"

"Why, Mae, you poor little tot, you're sentimental—for you. Yes, I like the future as well as I always did. I never gave much for the present, at any rate."

"But I did, Eric; I always did, till just now, and now I hate it, and I'm afraid of the future, and I'd like to grow backwards, and instead, in a month, I'll have another birth-day, and go into those dreadful twenties." Then Mae was quiet a moment. "Eric, I was sentimental," she said, after a pause. "Really, I do like the future very much. I quite forgot how much for the moment."

"You're a strange child, indeed," replied Eric, the puzzled. "Your words are like lightning. I had just got melted down and ready to reply to your reminiscences by lots of others, and here you are all jolly and matter-of-fact again. I was growing so dreadfully unselfish that I should have insisted on staying home with you this evening to cheer you up a bit."

"And give up the mocoletti! Why, Eric! I shouldn't have known how to take such an offer. No, no, trot off and array yourself, and you may come back and say good-bye."

"I must say good-bye now, dear, for I dine at the Costanzi with the girls and their aunt."

"Now, just now, Eric?"

"Why yes, Mae. You are getting blue again, aren't you? Getting ready for Ash Wednesday to-morrow?"

"Oh, no, no, dear. Kiss me, Eric, again. You're a good, dear boy. No; I didn't cry that drop at all. Good-bye; and to-morrow is Ash Wednesday. But we don't sorrow or fast in Paradise, I suppose."



CHAPTER XI.

The Corso was all ablaze. The whole world was there. Under a balcony stood a party of peasants. Of this group, two were somewhat aside. One of these was tall, dark, a fair type of Southern Italian; the other small, agile and graceful, dressed in a fresh contadina costume, with her brown hair braided down her shoulders. She seemed excited, and as the crowd pressed nearer she would draw back half-fearfully. "Lisetta," she whispered, "I am spoiling your good time. Talk to your friends; never mind me. I will follow by your side, and soon I shall catch the spirit of it all, too." Saying this, she stepped from under the balcony, held out her feeble little taper and joined in the cries around her, pausing to blow at any lowered bit of wax that came in her way. It was maddening sport; her light was extinguished again and again, but she would plead to have it relit, and there was sure to be some tender-hearted, kindly knight at hand to help her.

She ran on quickly, fearlessly, gliding and creeping and sliding through the crowd, her hair flying, her eyes dancing. Even in the dense throng many turned to look at her, and one tall man started suddenly from the shadow of a side street, where he had been standing motionless, and threw himself before the girl. He put out his arm, grasped her tightly, and drew her a few feet into the shadow. "Signorina!" he said. "Hush, hush," she whispered then in colder tones. "Let me go, Signor; you are mistaken. You, do not know me." He smiled quietly, holding her hands clasped in his. "I do not know you, Signorina? You do not know me. Your face is the picture always before my eyes."

"Yes, yes, forgive me," she fluttered, "I was startled, and indeed I am no Signorina now, but one of your own country peasants. I am with Lisetta. Why, where is Lisetta?"

Where, indeed, was she? There were hundreds of contadine in the great crowd surging by, but no Lisetta. The little peasant wrung her hands quite free from the man's grasp. "I must go home," she said. "I don't want any more Carnival."

"No, no," said the officer, quietly, reassuringly. "Get cool. Tell me how Lisetta looks and is dressed, and if we can not find her here, I will take you up to your friend's balcony."

"O, no, not there. Anywhere else, but not there."

"Why not?" asked Bero.

"Because, because,—yes, I will tell you," said Mae, remembering her wrongs, and suddenly moved by the sympathy and softness of the great eyes above her,—"because they think I am home ill, and here I am, you see," and she laughed a little hurriedly,—"besides, I go away with Lisetta to-morrow morning,—hush, let no one hear,—to Sorrento. You must never, never tell. How do I look? Will I make a good peasant, when once the dear sun has browned my hands and forehead, and I have grown Italianized?" And she lifted her face, into which the saucy gaiety had returned, up to him temptingly.

His warm blood was kindled. "You are a little child of the sun-god now," he exclaimed, passionately. "May I share some of your days in heaven? I am ordered to Naples tomorrow night; shall be only twelve hours behind you. May I come on the day after to see you in your new home?"

"O, how delightful! But, perhaps, my lord, our little cottage by the sea isn't grand enough for your spurs and buttons and glory. We are simple folks you know,—peasants all,—but our hearts, Signor, they are hospitable, and such as we have we will gladly give you. What do you say to the bay of Naples, and oranges for our luncheon day after tomorrow?" And Mae laughed lightly and joyously. Her little burnt taper fell to the ground, and she clasped her hands together. "What a happy thing life will be!"

"Will you live there and be a peasant forever?" asked Bero, leaning forward. "There are villas by the sea, too, Signorina."

Mae didn't hear these last words. Her heart had stood still on that "forever." Live there forever, forever, and never see her mother or Eric, or,—or any one again! "I hadn't thought of that," she said, "I hadn't thought of that." She stood still with her hands clasped, thinking. The officer at her side, looking down at her, was thinking also. He was fighting a slight mental struggle, a sort of combat he was quite unused to. Should he let the child go on in this wild freak? He knew the cottage by the sea; the peasant home would be dreadful to her. He knew that by that same day after to-morrow, life in lower Italy, with the dirty, coarse people about her would be a burden. Yet he hesitated. He fought the battle in this way: Should he not stand a better chance if he let her go? He had his leave of absence for three weeks (this was true; "ordered to Naples," he had called it to Mae). Three weeks away from his world, near this winsome, strange, magnetic little being, with the bay of Naples, and moonlight, and his own glories and her loveliness! He couldn't give up this chance. No, no. He would surely see her in a few hours after her troubles began, and comfort her. So he only smiled quietly down at her again, as she stood troubled by his side, and said: "Lisetta will seek you near your balcony if she knows where it is. Don't be troubled."

"But where is my balcony?" asked Mae.

"Come here," said Bero, leading her slightly forward. She looked up and saw the quiet side-window, where day after day the officer had flung her the sweet flowers when no one was looking. "I know this place very well," he said meaningly. Mae smiled a little cheerfully. "You have beautiful taste," she replied, "I have never seen such exquisite bouquets before."

Bero stroked his moustaches complacently. "You honor me, Signorina. I hope you may receive many, many more beautiful flowers—from the same hand." He whispered these last words, and Mae turned her head half uneasily. She looked up at the balcony. How odd it was that there, but a few feet away, were Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, and Albert. She fancied she could detect their voices, though she could not see them. The Hopkins-Rae window was vacated. "The girls" were probably down on the Corso with Eric and Norman, and Mae drew a little nearer to Bero, and looked up half appealingly. His eyes were fixed strangely on something or some one across the street. Mae followed their gaze, and saw upon the opposite balcony the beautiful veiled lady. She held in her hand a long rod tipped with a blazing taper.

"O, she is like a vestal virgin with her light, or a queen with a sceptre," cried Mae exultingly.

"She may be the vestal virgin, but the queen is by my side," said Bero earnestly.

Mae wished he would not talk in this way, and she tried to laugh it off. "I have no sceptre or crown; I'm but a poor queen in my common garb."

"We'll have the coronation day after to-morrow," replied Bero, very earnestly still.

"Tell me about her," and Mae nodded her head toward the strange lady. "There is little to tell," said Bero, in a quiet tone. "Her brother is well known in Rome as an artist. He lives there with his sister and an old duenna. She wears this mysterious veil constantly, and some fanciful people see just as mysterious a cloud resting about her life. I only know she is strange and beautiful, and that her name is Lillia."

Yet Bero had seen this woman almost daily for six months. But he only knew she was strange and beautiful, and that her name was Lillia.

Mae had never spoken to the veiled stranger, yet if Bero had turned upon her and asked, "Who is she?" she would have replied: "I do not know her name or where she lives, but I know she struggles, and despairs, and smiles over all. And I know her suffering comes from sorrow—not from sin." But Mae did not say all this. She only looked at the veiled lady. Her vestal lamp had dropped for the moment, and she seemed to be gazing far away. A fold of her heavy veil fell over her brow quite down to her great dark eyes. They were unshaded, yet they too, seemed clouded for the moment. "Her name is Lillia," said Mae, reassuringly to herself. "Her name is Lillia. I am sure she is like her name." Bero smiled. Just then Lisetta appeared.



CHAPTER XII.

Early the next morning, in the misty light, Lisetta and Mae, the latter still in her contadina costume, left the house quietly. In an hour the train for Naples was to start, but Lisetta wanted to say her prayers in Rome on this Ash Wednesday. They wandered into a little church, one of the many Roman churches, and knelt side by side, Lisetta with her beads and her penance, and Mae with her thoughts, which grew dreary enough before the peasant was ready to go. Mae had already entrusted her money to Lisetta's keeping—some one hundred and fifty dollars, which she had gotten the day before from Albert to buy clothes with—and with her money she had also resigned all care. She did not know therefore, until the train started, that their seats were in a third-class carriage. Every one was hurrying on board, so Mae was obliged to jump in without a word, and accept her fate as best she could. It was no very pleasant fate. The van was dirty, crowded, garlic-scented. Mae was plucky, however, and knew she was to find dirt and dreadful odors everywhere. Two months of Rome had taught her that. But it grew very dreadful in the close travelling-carriage. There was an old woman at her side, with a deformed hand, and two soldiers opposite, who stared rudely at her, and made loud, unpleasant remarks; and having no books, and nothing to entertain herself with, she was forced to curl up in a corner, and try to sleep, which she could not do.

Poor child! it was a hard day. Dull and dreary outside, and within, the sickening odors and people. Back in Rome, what were they doing? Had they found out that she had gone? And Eric, how was he feeling? No, no, she must not think of all this. It belonged to the past. Before her lay Sorrento, the bay of Naples, oranges, white clouds, and the children of the sun. Mamma was south, too—if she were only going to her. So the day dragged on, until with the evening they reached Naples. They spent the night with a friend of Lisetta, who rented apartments to English and Americans. Mae was fortunate, therefore, in securing an unlet bedroom that was comfortably furnished. She enjoyed listening to Lisetta's stories of Rome and the Carnival; and after a quiet night in a clean bed, awoke tolerably happy and very eager for her first sight of the bay. They took an early train out to Castellamare, and as they left the city, Mae wondered if Bero were just entering it. But she soon forgot him and every one in the blue glories of the bay.

At Castellamare, Gaetano, Lisetta's husband, was awaiting them, with a malicious little donkey, tricked out gaily enough in tags of color and tinkling bells. It was very quaint and delightful to get into the funny, low, rattling cart, and go jogging off, while the feminine sight-seers fanned themselves in the windows of the ladies' waiting-room, and grumbled, and the poor masculine travellers bartered in poor Italian, with their certain-to-conquer enemies, those triumphant swindlers, the drivers of the conveyances between Sorrento and Castellamare.

Then they began that wonderful ride along the coast. The horrors of the day before rolled away like a mist as the donkey jogged along that miraculous drive. Lisetta and Gaetano chattered together, and Mae sat very still, with her face to the sea, drinking in all the glory, as she had longed and planned. Hope revived in her breast, pride had stood by her all the while, and here was glorious nature coming to her aid. She was going swiftly to the orange groves and the children of the sun. She should see Talila and brown babies and dancing, and at night a great, yellow moon would light up the whole scene. So on and on they went, the travelling carriages dashing by them now and then, with their three donkeys abreast, and the driver cracking his whip, and the travellers oh-ing and ah-ing.

"That is the most picturesque peasant I have yet seen," said a gentle lady in brown to her husband, as they passed the humble little party. "Yes, she is clean, and more like the ideal than the actual peasant, and I am very glad I have seen her."

Really, Mae was for the moment, at a quick glance, the ideal peasant. Her hands lay in her lap, her face was toward the sea, and her attitude and features were all full of that glow of existence that peasant portraits possess. She lived and moved and had her being as part of a great, warm, live picture. If the lady in brown had not passed so quickly, however, she would have seen a something in Mae's face that spoiled her for a peasant, an earnestness in her admiration, a sharp intensity in her joy, that was very different from the languid content of a Southern Italian. Her movements were rather like those of the Northern squirrel, which climbs nimbly and frisks briskly, than like the sinuous, serpentine motions of the Southern creatures of the soil. We are, after all, born where we belong, as a rule, and the rest of us soon belong where we are born.

After a time the donkey pattered along towards a little patch of houses on the shore. They had already passed a half dozen of similar settlements. Very dirty children ran about crying, ugly, old women knitted, mongrel dogs and cats barked and yelped and rolled in the mud. Bits of orange-peel and old cabbage and other refuse food lay piled near the doors. There were, to be sure, young girls with dark eyes, plaiting straw, and the very dirt heaps had a picturesque sort of air. An artist might linger a moment to look, but never to enter. Yet it was here that Mae must enter. This was her new home. The neighbors came crowding about curiously, and she was hurried into the little hut that seemed as if it were carved roughly from some big garlic, probably by taking out the heart of it for dinner. Mae hardly comprehended the situation at first, but when she began to realize that this was a substitute for sea breeze, and that the coarse clipped patois (which sounded worse in the mass than when it fell from Lisetta's lips alone) was in place of the flowing melody of speech she had longed for, she grew sick at heart. The folly, the dreadfulness of what she had done, swept over her like a flood, and with it came dreadful fear. She was helpless,—an outcast. Pride would never let her go home. She could go nowhere else. They had her money, and here she must live and die. She sat down in a sort of stupor, and paid no heed to the squabbling children who pulled at her gown, or the dogs who sniffed snappingly at the stranger.

Lisetta, busy with greetings and chattings, quite forgot her for a time, and was dismayed when she saw her sitting disconsolately by. "Come, Signorina," she cried, "go down to the bay. Here is Talila; she will guide you."

Mae looked up quickly at that. Talila, was she here? A few feet from her she saw an uncouth woman, with that falling of the jaw most imbeciles possess, and a vacancy in her eyes. She had her hand raised and was swearing at one of the children. "Talila," repeated Mae, rubbing her eyes, and shivering, "but I thought Talila would be different. You said she loved children, but this woman swears at them."

"O, dear, we all swear at them, but we love them; you shall see how they follow her. Talila, off with you and your babies." And the next moment there was a general scamper of brown children headed by this tall, vacant-looking woman. "Take the lady to the sea," continued Lisetta. And Mae arose, as if in a dream, and followed them.

The half-clad children of the sun ran before her as she had dreamed they would; flowers sprang up along the way, but she did not stop to pluck a single bud or turn to look at anything. She wandered on in an awful sort of fright and came at length to the water's edge. Here there were row-boats lying at anchor, into which the children clambered. Mae stepped into one of them and sat down in the stern, and looked about. All was as she had planned. Her day of heaven was here. She tried to be brave. O, she tried very hard. She wanted to love and enjoy the sea, and think beautiful thoughts. She roused a little and stretched herself out to catch the sunbeams in her eyes, as she had said she would. How warm they were. An umbrella would be a luxury—and a book! But these belonged to the world she had left so far behind her. The dirty children babbled a strange tongue; the water around the boat, by the shore, was covered with a scum, and alas! alas! the land of her desire was farther off than ever. Then she remembered that Norman Mann had once said: "If you ever do disappear I shall know where to look for you." Would he think of it now? Would he come for her? If he had only come last night, and would drive by now to Sorrento. He would be here soon if he had. Would she call him loudly or shrink down in the boat and hide her face in her hands till she knew he was a long way past? The rest of them would not know where to look for her. They did not know anything about Lisetta, and she had promised not to tell even the padrona. (Faithless Lisetta!) But of course Norman wouldn't come for her, after what he had said at the Capitol. That was what finally drove her away. How unlike him it did seem to speak of her in that way to Eric. She thought over his words, and as she did so she seemed to see her mistake, and grasp his meaning.