She sprang up in the boat. "It was the other girl—Miss Rae—he was speaking of. Oh, oh, oh—and now it is too late. He will hate me always."

As she stood there, a carriage rolled by. Some one looked out. "O, mamma," said a young voice in English, "look at that pretty little peasant," and a kid-gloved hand was stretched through the open window to spatter a shower of base coin toward her. It was terrible! The children sprang for it, and, fighting and laughing, ran homewards with the dreadful Talila. The parti-colored picturesque dress had been a joy to Mae. Now she longed to tear it off and die—die! No, she was afraid to die. She would have to live, and she didn't know how, and she laughed a bitter sort of laugh.

There was a sound of horses' feet again. The road lay almost close to the shore just here. A low exclamation, a vault from his horse, which was speedily cared for by a dozen boys near at hand, and before Mae knew it, the officer was beside her once more.

O, how beautiful it was to see some one from the world, fresh, and clean, and fair. Mae gazed at him in delight, and sprang up warmly, holding out both her hot hands, "How is Heaven?" asked Bero, as he raised the white fingers to his lips.

"That is not the custom with us," said Mae, withdrawing her hand.

"But what is custom in Heaven?" he laughed. "Can't we do as we please in our Heaven, Signorina?"

"This isn't our Heaven, and I don't please. O, how could you let me come to this dreadful place. Did you know how awful it would be?"

"Shall I tell you why I said nothing? Let me row you away from all this," and he began to untie the boat.

"When did you come?" asked Mae,

"I left Rome last night, reached Naples this morning, and here I am as soon as possible, Signorina."

Mae felt herself gradually yielding to the spell of this man's soft power. She had grown strangely quiet and passive, and she folded her hands and looked off seawards in a not unhappy way. She seemed to be some one else in a strange dream.

"Are you glad I came?" asked Bero, as he jumped into the boat and sat down opposite her. Mae did not reply. She had almost lost the power of speech. She only smiled feebly and faintly. Bero had never seen her thus before, but he realized dimly that it was he who had changed her, and the sense of his own power excited him the more. He bent his proud head and flashed his beautiful eyes as he lifted the oars to the locks, and silently pulled out toward the bay.

As he rowed he gazed fixedly at her, and the frightened, puzzled child could not turn her eyes from his. His look grew softer and tenderer, his head bent towards her, the oars moved slower and slower and at last stopped imperceptibly. Still the man gazed passionately, claimingly, and the girl breathed harder and let her eyes rest on his, as if he had been a wondrous, charming serpent, and she a little, unresisting dove. Then he spoke.

His words were so low, it seemed as if his eyes had found voice; his words were so caressing, it seemed as if they changed to kisses as they fell. "Listen," he said, softly, and drew up his dripping oars and let the boat drift—"Listen. This is not our Heaven, but I know a villa by the sea. There are hills and woods about it; flowers, fruits, and in the day, sunshine, at night, moonlight and music; drives, and walks, and vines, and arbors. Could you find there your Heaven—with me? May I take you to my villa?"

When he ceased, his words dropped slowly into silence, and Mae still gazed at him. She saw him come nearer to her, with his eyes fixed on hers; she saw his hand leave the oar and move slowly toward hers, but she was motionless, looking at the picture he had painted her of life—the cloudless days, moonlit nights—the villa by the sea—the glowing Piedmontese. Her eyelids trembled, her pulse beat.

Could she take that villa for her home? That man for her husband? She had half thought till now in soft luxurious Italian, but 'my home' and 'my husband' said themselves to her in her own mother tongue. She gave a long shiver, and pulled her eyes from his. It was like waking from a dream. "No—oh, no; take me home," she gasped, and turned toward the shore, where, erect, with folded arms and head bared, stood Norman Mann.

The Italian bit his lip, and said something under his breath, but he took the oars and pulled ashore. Mae turned her eyes downward and felt the color creep up, up into her cheeks. It seemed eternity. The boat was Charon's, and she was drifting to her fate. Norman Mann stood like a statue. The wind moved his hair over his forehead, and once Mae saw him toss the unruly locks back in a familiar way he had. She did not know why, but the tears half came to her eyes as he did it. He stood as firm and hard and still as a New England rock, while the Italian swayed lithely as he pulled the oars, with the curve and motion of a sliding, slippery stream.

The boat came safely ashore. The Piedmontese helped her to land, and the three stood silent; but Mae under all her shame felt content to be near Norman. His voice broke the quiet, quick and clear. "Are you married?" he asked.

"I! married! What do you—what can he mean?"

"Why is this man here, then?"

Mae stood an instant so still that the heavy breaths of the two men were distinctly audible, the passionate boundings of Bero's pulse, the long, deep throbs of Norman's heart. The officer stepped toward her. Norman stood unmoved. The Italian's eye wandered restlessly, his hand fell to his sword. Norman's arms were folded, and his face set.

Mae looked at one, then at the other, perplexedly. Then she understood. Like lightning, a terrible temptation flashed into her mind. The Italian loved her, would shield, protect, honor her. Norman must hate her, would always despise her. Should she lift her little weak woman's hand and place it in the man's hand ready to claim it, or stand still and be crushed by that other hand there?

Ah! she could not do it. She tried once. She held out weakly her right hand toward Bero; but the left stretched itself involuntarily to Norman. Then the two met in each other's pitiful clasp over her bent head, and with a low wailing cry she fell in a little heap on the sand.

When she opened her eyes, they were both bending over her. "Take me home," she gasped to Norman. He glared at the officer. "Go!" he said. Bero put his hand to his sword. Mae sprang up. "No," she said, gently, "no, my friend, for you have always been kind and friendly to me. Pray go." Bero was touched by this. This little girl had taken only good from him, after all, sympathy and friendliness. Norman was touched also with the same thought. Then the officer smiled pleasantly. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, regretfully, and bowed and rode away. And so the clinking spurs and yellow moustaches and amorous eyes vanished from Mae's sight.

As he rode off he was somewhat sorrowful; but he took a picture from his pocket and looked at it. "She'll be glad to welcome me back again," he said to himself, pleasantly, "and she belongs to my own land. This little foreigner might have pined for her own home, by and by." Then he sighed and shook his head. "Alas! this little stranger will dance before you often, still!" and he touched his eyes; "but I will put you back in your place here, now." This he said, looking at Lillia's picture and with his hand on his heart.



CHAPTER XIII.

"Take me home," said Mae again imploringly. "Not back there," as Norman drew her hand through his arm and started for the hut, "O no, not even for a minute."

"Sit here then," he replied quietly, "while I arrange it with the woman," and he walked quickly away. Mae watched him till he entered the low doorway, in a sort of subdued, glorified happiness, that would break out over her shame and fear. She was afraid he would hate her, at least she told herself so, but in reality, everything and everybody and every place were fast fading out of this eager little mind. She and Norman were together, and she could not help being content. There was a certain joy in her weakness and shame, though they were genuine and kept her hushed and silent.

Poor Lisetta was very much frightened, but told her story to this angry stranger with true Southern palaver. She said the little lady loved Italy so, and wanted to be a peasant, and insisted she would run away quite by herself if Lisetta would not take her, and so she consented, knowing she could, through the padrona, send word to the friends.

"And the man?" asked Norman, impatiently.

"What man? O, the officer. He just rode down this morning for a morning call. I never saw him before."

A great weight, as large as the Piedmontese, fell from Norman's heart then, and he scattered money among the children recklessly and ordered up the donkey; and smiled on the amazed Lisetta all in the same breath, and went back to help Mae into the wagon with the lightest kind of a heart. It was a strange ride they took back to Castellamare. I think they both wished the world could stand still once more. When they had arrived at the station they found the next train to Naples was not due for two hours. Norman left Mae in the waiting-room for a time. Through the window she watched Gaetano and the donkey start homeward, with a great sigh of relief. She had time while she was sitting to think, but her head was in too great a whirl. She could only feel sorry and ashamed and meek and happy, all mixed together. The sensation was odd.

"I have telegraphed Eric that we would start home by the next train, that you had only been off for a frolic. I hope we can buy a waterproof or shawl and a hat in Naples for you?"

"Yes," said Mae, meekly, "I have my waterproof here. I think I will put it on now, please," and she began nervously to untie the shawl strap. Norman put her fingers gently aside, and unbuckled it for her. He handed her the long deep-blue cloak, which she put tightly about her, drawing the hood over her head. "You look like a nun," said Norman, smiling. "I wish I were one," replied Mae, with a choke in her throat. She was growing very penitential and softened.

"What shall we do now?" asked Mr. Mann. "We have a long time to wait. If you feel like walking, we can find a pleasanter spot than this."

"Go anywhere you please," replied Mae meekly. "What is the matter with you?"—for Norman had a very amused expression in his brown eyes.

"I hardly recognize you. Not a trace of fight so far, and it must be two hours since we met."

"Don't," said Mae, with her eyes down, so of course he didn't, but the two just marched quietly along back on the Sorrento road towards some high rocks. They sat down behind these, with their faces towards the sea, and were as thoroughly hidden from view, as if they had been quite alone in the world.

"I suppose they were frightened," asked Mae, "at home—at Rome, I mean." "Dreadfully," replied Norman, trying to be sober, but with the glad ring in his voice still. "Edith was for dragging the Tiber; she was sure you and the seven-branched candlestick lay side by side. Mrs. Jerrold searched your trunks and read all your private papers, I am morally certain." Then Norman stopped abruptly, and Mae drew the long stiletto from her hair nervously and played with it before she said, "And the boys?" "Albert was very, very sad, but reasonably sure you would be found. We all feared the Italian, but Albert worked carefully, and soon discovered that the officer was said to be engaged to a young girl with whom he had been seen the day after you left, and that gave him courage,"—then Norman stopped again abruptly. "And Eric?" "Eric sat down with his face in his hands and cried, Miss Mae, and said, 'I've lost my sister, the very dearest little sister in the world.'"

"And you came and found me," said Mae, after a pause, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Yes, thank God," said Norman. He was sober enough now. "Why did you do it?" asked Mae, "when I had been so naughty, and silly, and unkind?" He came very near telling her the reason as she looked up at him, but he did not, for she dashed on, "O! Mr. Mann, I have been—"

"Don't confess to me, Miss Mae. Leave all of this till you get home to your own, who have a right to your confessions and penitence. Never mind what you have been, here you are, and as I have only one more handkerchief and your own looks as if it had been sea-bathing, you had better dry your eyes and be jolly for the next two hours." This was a precarious speech, but Mae only laughed at it, and dried her eyes quickly. "But I have one thing to say to you," she said, "and please mayn't I?"

"You may say anything you please to me, of course," replied this very magnanimous Norman.

"It is not about the miserable past or my doings, but it's about the future. I've said good-bye to my dreams of life—the floating and waving and singing and dancing life that was like iced champagne. I'd rather have cold water, thank you, sir, for a steady drink, morning, noon and night. I'm going to be good, to read and study and grow restful,"—and Mae folded her hands and looked off toward the sea. "She's a witching child," thought Norman. Then she raised her head. "I said it lightly because I felt it deeply," she added, as if in reply to his thought. "I am going to grow, if I can, unselfish and sympathetic, and perhaps, who knows, wise, and any way good."

"There is no need of giving up your champagne entirely. Give yourself a dinner party now and then o' holidays. The world is full of color and beauty, and poetry you love. All study is full of it—most of all it lives in humanity."

"Well," said Mae, "aren't you glad I'm going to change so?"

"I'm glad you're going to give your soul a chance. Your body has been putting it down hard of late."

"It's but a weakling," said Mae, with a shake of her head, "and I've hardly heard its whimpers at all, but—O, Mr. Mann, if you could have seen Talila—she's dreadful."

"Who is Talila? and what has she to do with your soul?"

"O, she's one of those Sorrento people," replied Mae, as if she had lived there for years. "I have so much to tell you: it will take—"

"Years, I hope, dear." The last word dropped without his noticing it, but Mae caught it and hid it in her heart.

"What made you think of coming for me?" she asked, after a pause, during which Norman had hummed a song as she had been writing her name on the sand. They were quite on the shore and only a narrow stretch of beach separated them from the bay. "You said if you ever came away, you would go to Sorrento, and I knew you had a friend in the kitchen who lived near Naples. So I searched for her and the padrona, and, finding neither of them, set Giovanni a babbling, and learned that the woman Lisetta had left that morning for Sorrento. I told the boys I had a mere suspicion that I would trace for them. So off I came last night, and by stopping and enquiring at every settlement, at last discovered you."

"This is my birth-day; I am twenty years old," said Mae, "Why, what are you doing?" For Norman had bent down to the sand also, and had drawn a queer little figure there.

"That is you when you were one year old," he laughed, "and you could only crow and kick your small feet, and smile now and then, and cry the rest of the time."

"That is about all I can do yet," said Mae.

"Here comes number two," and he drew his hand across the sand and smoothed the baby image away, leaving in its place a round, sturdy little creature, poised dangerously on one foot. "You have walked alone, and you have called your father's name, and you're a wonderful child by this time."

"This is the three-year-old, white aprons and curls, please observe. Now, you recite 'Dickery, dickery dock' and 'I want to be an angel,' and you have cut all your wisdom teeth."

"O, Mr. Mann, I haven't cut them yet. Babies don't have them."

"Don't they? Well, you have other teeth in their place, white and sharp—but by this time you are four years old."

"Ah, here I begin to remember. You draw the pictures, and I'll describe myself. Four years old!—let me see—I had a sled for Christmas, and I used to eat green apples. That's all I can remember; and five and six years old were just the same."

"O, no, I'm sure you went to church for the first time somewhere along there; and isn't that a noteworthy event? I suppose all your thoughts were of your button boots and your new parasol?"

"I behaved beautifully, I know; mamma says so; sat up like a lady, while you were sleeping, on that very same Sunday, off in some little country church, I suppose."

"I shouldn't wonder—sleeping in my brother's outgrown coat into the bargain, with the sleeves dangling over my little brown hands."

"It doesn't seem as if they could ever have been very little, does it, Mr. Mann?"

Mr. Mann unfolded five fingers and a thumb and surveyed them gravely for a moment. "It is strange that this once measured three inches by two and couldn't hit out any better than your's could."

Mae had laid her hand on her knee and was looking at it also in the most serious manner. Now she doubled it into a small but very pugnacious looking fist, which she shook most entrancingly before the very eyes of the young man by her side. The eyes turned such a peculiar look upon her that she hastened to add: "Go on with your dissolving views. It is number eight's turn next. You are the showman, and I am interested spectator."

"You insist upon describing my pictures, so I think you are properly first assistant to the grand panorama. Here's eight-year-old. Try your powers on her."

"Let me see. O, then I read all the while, the 'Fairchild Family' and 'Anna Ross,' and I used to wear my hair in very smooth braids, I remember. I was ever so good."

"Impossible; you must have forgotten," suggested Norman. "You surely whispered in school and committed similar dreadful crimes. Poor little prig."

"No, don't," plead Mae; "please don't laugh at the little girl me. I love to think of her as so goody-goody. Last night," and Mae lowered her voice, "I seemed to see little Mae Madden kneeling down in the old nursery in her woolly wrapper saying her prayers," and Mae brought up on the prayers very abruptly, and bent over toward the sand and began to draw hastily. "Here comes nine-year-old Mae. Mr. Mann, you may do the describing."

"O, I suppose there were doll's parties, first valentines, and rides with Albert in his buggy, when you clung very tightly to the slight arm of the carriage and smiled very bravely up in his face. You must have been pretty then."

"No, I was dreadfully ugly. I had broken out two teeth climbing a stone wall."

"You had stopped being good?"

"Yes, that only lasted a little bit of a time."

"Miss Mae, I'm sure you were never ugly, but naughty and silly, I dare say. Kept a diary now, didn't you?"

"Yes, and went to sleep with Eliza Cooke's poems under my pillow every night, and my finger holding the book open at some such thrilling verse as this:

'Say on that I'm over romantic In loving the wild and the free, But the waves of the dashing Atlantic, The Alps and the eagle for me.'"

"Did you wear your hair plaited when you were ten years old?" enquired Norman, intensely busy with another drawing.

"O no; I didn't do anything when I was ten years old but get mad and make up with my two dearest friends."

"One of whom was your dearest friend one-half of the time and the other the rest of it, I suppose."

"Don't be satirical, sir. I had a lover when I was eleven; I used to skate with him and write him little notes, folded very queerly."

"Why do you draw twelve and thirteen with their heads down?" asked Mae, after a moment.

"Because they read so much; everything they can get hold of, including, possibly, a very revised edition of 'Arabian Nights'?"

"Yes," laughed Mae, "and my first novel, 'Villette.'"

"You go to a play for the first time now," suggested Norman. "How you clasp your hands and wink your eyes and bite your lips! And next day, in front of your mother's pier-glass, how you scream 'O, my love,' and gasp and tumble over in a heap in your brown calico, as the grand lady did the night before, in her pink silk."

"Brown calico, indeed! I never condescended to die in my own clothes, let me assure you. The garret was overhauled, and had been since I was a mere baby, for effective, sweeping garments. Let us hurry along over fourteen and fifteen. I was sentimental and tried to be so young-ladyish then. I used to read history with Albert, and always put on both my gloves when I started out, and had great horror of girls who talked loud in the street. I learned to make bread, and shirt bosoms, and such things."

"Well, here you are in a long dress, Miss Sweet Sixteen. I remember you home from boarding school on a vacation."

"What did you think of me?" asked Mae, "didn't we have a nice time that summer? O, how silly I was!"

She hurried on, because the eyes had given her that peculiar look again, which put her heart in a tremble. "I did have a beautiful time at boarding school," she continued, "the darlingest principal and such girls."

"Then I suppose you wrote a salutatory in forlorn rhyme to end off with," laughed Norman, "and read it, all arrayed in white, in a trembling voice, and everybody applauded, and even old Judge Seymour admired it, while you were reading, with your pink cheeks and trembling hands and quivering voice."

"Abominable! I didn't have the salutatory, and the girl who did, read a superb one, as strong and masculine—"

"Then the Judge went to sleep, I'm sure," declared Norman.

"Well," said Mae, "you are leaving out two years," for Norman had leaned back against the rock with his arms folded.

"By and by," said Norman, "we all come off to Europe, and some of us go through the heart-ache, don't we?"

"Yes," replied Mae, softly.

"But come out ahead one day at Sorrento, perhaps?" asked Norman. To which Mae made no direct reply.

"All the Mae Maddens have faded away," she said, looking down at the sand again. "The tide is rising." And she walked forward to the ripples of water, and then came slowly back and stood before Norman seriously. He laughed.

"Why, Mr. Mann," said Mae, "I have been so very, very wicked."

The dreadful Mr. Mann only laughed again.

"You act as if it were all a joke. I never saw you so merry before."

"I have never been as happy before in my life."

"Why?" asked Mae, in a low voice.

"Because I have found you," he answered earnestly, and before she knew it Mae was lifted in the strong, manly arms, her pink cheek close to Norman's brown one, and his lips on hers. She leaned her face against his and clung tightly to him,

"O, Mr. Norman Mann," she said, "do you really want me as much—as I do you?"

And Norman, still holding her tightly, bent his hand, with hers clasped in it, to the sand, and after the Mae Madden, he wrote another name, so that it read:

MAE MADDEN MANN.

Then he said a great many, many things, all beginning with that electric, wonderful little possessive pronoun "my," of which he had discoursed formerly, and he held her close all the while, and they missed the next train for Naples.

The gay peasant costume fell about the girl's round lithe form like the luxuriant skin of some richly marked animal; but out of her eyes looked a woman's tender, loving, earnest soul. Norman Mann had saved her.



CHAPTER XIV.

Edith was quietly married to Albert at Easter time, in the English Chapel at Florence. The event was hastened by the sudden appearance of Mae's parents, who set sail soon after hearing of the Sorrento escapade and the embryonic engagement, which awaited their sanction before being announced. Everything was beautifully smooth at last. Edith and Albert left the day of their marriage for Munich, and later, Mrs. Jerrold was to settle down with them at Tuebingen. The rest of the party were to summer in Switzerland; then came fall, and then—what?

Norman thought he knew, and Mae said she thought he didn't, but this young woman was losing half her character for willfulness, and Norman was growing into a perfect tyrant, so far as his rights were concerned. Easter is a season of marriages. Mae read in a Roman paper the betrothal announcement of the Signor Bero and Signorina Lillia Taria. "I would like to send them a real beautiful present," said she, and Norman did not say no. So these two hunted all over Florence, and at length, in the studio of a certain not unknown Florentine, they discovered the very gift Mae desired—a picture of a young Italian soldier, bringing home his bride to his own people. There was the aged mother, proud and happy, waiting to bid the dark-eyed girl welcome. "She has a real 'old Nokomis' air," laughed Mae. "I know she would have told her son not to seek 'a stranger whom he knew not.'" The distant olive-colored hillsides, the splashing fountain near at hand, each face, and even the thick strong sunshine seemed to bear a tiny stamp with Italy graven on it. "The name of the picture is exactly right," said Mae. Under the painting were these words: "Italia Our Home."

Norman would hardly have been human if he had not cast a quick glance at her as she stood thoughtfully before the picture. Mae was almost as good as an Italian for involuntary posing. She had made a tableau of herself now, with one hand at her eyes to shade them from the glare of the sun that fell fiercely through the window, her head half on one side, and a bit of drapery, of lace or soft silk, tight around her white throat. She felt Norman's glance, and looked up quickly, and smiled and shook her head: "No, Italy is not my home, although I love it so well. There is a certain wide old doorway not many miles from New York, and the hills around it, and the great river before it, and the people in it, all belong together, too. That's where we belong, Norman, in America, our home," and Mae struck a grand final pose with her hands clasped ecstatically, and her eyes flashing in the true Goddess of Liberty style.

"Yes, I believe we do, Mae; I am almost anxious to get back and begin work in that young, eager country."

"And so am I," said Mae.

Norman laughed. "To think of your coming down to work, you young butterfly."

"It is what we all have to come to, isn't it?—unless we go to that creature that finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. I don't expect to come to stone-cutting or cattle-driving, but I do expect to settle down into a tolerable housewifely little woman, and—"

"And look after me."

"Yes, I suppose so—and myself, and probably a sewing-class and the cook's lame son. Heigh-ho-hum! What a pity it is, that it is so uninteresting to be good."

"How do you know?"

"Don't be saucy. I do know, perfectly well, that Mae Madden, naughty, idle, and silly, may be, after all, not so stupid; but get me good, industrious and wise, and it will take all of my time when I'm not asleep to keep so. No, there'll be nothing to say about me any more. I'll be as humdrum as—"

"As I am."

"You—why Norman, are you humdrum?"

"Of course I am, dreadfully humdrum. If you and I were in a story-book, you would have ten pages to my one, to keep the reader awake. But then, story-books aren't the end of life. Suppose you, Mae Madden, have been odd, full of variety, ready to twist common occurrences into something startling and romantic, have you been happy? Haven't you been restless and discontented? Now, can't you, grown humdrum and good, be very happy and contented and joyful, even if the sun rises on just about the same Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the year round? You will not do for a story-book then, but won't you do better for life? And, after all, a lively murderer is a great deal more sensational than you could ever be."

"Even when I ran away?"

"Yes. Now, you see, I have been humdrum again, and half preached a sermon."

"All right, sir; so long as you take me for a text, you may preach as you want to, and by and by, I dare say, I shall agree with you."

"It would have been a great deal more interesting if you had married that Italian."

"How do you know I could have married that Italian, my lord? He is going to marry a girl as much more beautiful than I am as—as Bero himself is than you—and yet I would rather have you. And now, don't you dare look at me in that way. I'll never say another nice thing to you if you do. This artist will think we are—"

"Lovers, my dear. And aren't we?"

* * * * *

Ten days later Norman entered with a letter for Mae. "Read it to me," she said, throwing back the blinds and leaning her elbows on the window-cushion.

"It is from Lillia. Would you rather read it yourself?" "O, no." So Norman read what Lillia had written in her pretty broken English:

"My DEAR MISS MAE:—Thank you of all my heart for your so lovely gift. I have had so little home since long, long ago my mother died, and now I am to have one as the maid in the picture has. We will marry the fifth day of May at five o'clock, and will wish you to be there. Don't forget me.

"LILLIA."

"Signor Bero has added a postscript, Mae, which you can translate better than I." And Norman handed her the letter. Mae translated it thus:

"Did you know all that the picture would say to me, Signorina? Receive my thanks for it, too, and believe I shall always live worthy of my Italy, my wife and friends that I see in the picture, and of another friend who lives so far away, whom I shall never see again, if I have such a friend. Think of my beautiful Lillia on our wedding day. We shall be married at St. Andrea's, at vesper time.

"Bero."

"And this is the day," said Mae, dropping the note.

"And the very hour, allowing the bride and the sun a few minutes each," added Norman, glancing at the clock.

They gaze quietly out of the window of their lodgings on the Borgo Ognissante, but Mae sees far away beyond the Arno, into the church of St. Andrea,—music, and pomp, and beautiful ceremony, and before the altar, a woman in her bridal robes, with heavily figured lace falling over her black hair and white forehead, and against her soft cheeks and shoulders. Her great brown eyes have thrown away the mist of sadness for a luminous wedding veil of joy, and she is Lillia, and by her side, erect, proud, glorious, with a lingering ray of light falling on his golden head, is her happy husband, Bero. They stand before the altar of St. Andrea's. "God bless you," says Mae aloud. Then her gaze wanders back to the coral and mosaic shops below in the street, and up across to the opposite window, where a long-haired, brown-moustached, brown-eyed man leans, puffing smoke from his curved lips, and holding his cigarette in his slender fingers. She meets his gaze now, as she has met it before. "He is wondering what life will bring to these two young people, I fancy," says Mae.

"Our own wedding-day, Mae," Norman replies; and they both forget all about Lillia, and Bero, and the stranger, and suddenly leave the window. The long-haired man puffs his cigar in a little loneliness, and wishes that wedding bells might ring for his empty heart too.

THE END