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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mae Madden, by Mary Murdoch Mason
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+Mae Madden 
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+by Mary Murdoch Mason
+
+July, 1998  [Etext #1829]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mae Madden by Mary Murdoch Mason
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+
+
+MAE MADDEN
+
+by Mary Murdoch Mason
+
+
+
+
+With an introductory poem, by Joaquin Miller.
+
+
+The wheel of fortune guide you,
+The boy with the bow beside	you
+Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day
+And a luckier lot betide you.
+
+Ben Jonson.
+
+
+
+A DREAM OF ITALY.
+
+AN ALLEGORY INTRODUCING "MAE MADDEN."
+
+
+I.
+
+We two had been parted, God pity us, when
+The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim;
+We two had been parted far back on the rim
+And the outermost border of heaven's red bars:
+We two had been parted ere the meeting of men
+Or God had set compass on spaces as yet.
+We two had been parted ere God had set
+His finger to spinning the spaces with stars,--
+And now, at the last in the gold and set
+Of the sun of Venice, we two had met.
+
+II.
+
+Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown,
+With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air,
+Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town,
+With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare,
+By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea,
+I saw her.  I knew her, but she knew not me.
+I had found her at last!  Why, I had sailed
+The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed
+All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled,
+And called from the awful arched dome of the world.
+
+III.
+
+I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed
+And filled full to the throat. . . .  Then I turned me once more
+So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed
+On the far, snowy Alps. . . .  Her breast!  Why, her breast
+Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest;
+Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told
+As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold
+Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . .
+I knew her!  I knew her, though we had not met
+Since the far stars sang to the sun's first set.
+
+IV.
+
+How long I had sought her!  I had hungered, nor ate
+Of any sweet fruits.  I had tasted not one
+Of all the fair glories grown under the sun.
+I had sought only her.  Yea, I knew that she
+Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me
+Somewhere by my way.  But the path ways of fate
+They had led otherwhere.  The round world round,
+The far North seas and the near profound
+Had failed me for aye.  Now I stood by that sea
+While a ship drove by, and all dreamily.
+
+V.
+
+I had turned from the lion a time, and when
+I looked tow'rd the tide and out on the lea
+Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed
+With beauty, I saw her.  I knew her then,
+The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men.
+O, Venice stood full in her glory.  She gleamed
+In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea;
+Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity,
+While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark
+And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the dark,
+
+VI.
+
+Was it well with my love?  Was she true?  Was she brave
+With virtue's own valor?  Was she waiting for me?
+O, how fared my love!  Had she home?  Had she bread?
+Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered wave?
+Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head;
+Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead?
+So long it had been!  So long!  Why the sea,
+That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave,
+Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar
+Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore.
+
+VII.
+
+O, how fared my love?  Once I lifted my face
+And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea;
+I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place
+And cried, "O, I come like a king to your side
+Though all hell intervene." . . .  "Hist! she may be a bride!
+A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee!
+A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side! . . .
+Have I wandered too long, and has destiny
+Set mortal between us?"  I buried my face
+In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place.
+
+VIII.
+
+'Twas her year to be young.  She was tall, she was fair 
+Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?  
+'Twas her year to be young.  She was fair, she was tall 
+And I knew she was true as I lifted my face 
+And saw her press down her rich robe to its place 
+With a hand white and small as a babe's with a doll, 
+And her feet--why, her feet, in the white shining sand, 
+Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand.  
+Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand that shone
+And flashed in the light with a white starry stone.
+
+IX.
+
+Then, my love she was rich.  My love she was fair.
+Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?
+She was gorgeous with wealth, "Thank God, she has bread,"
+I said to myself.  Then I humbled my head
+In gratitude.  Then I questioned me where
+Was her palace? her parents?  What name did she bear?
+What mortal on earth came nearest her heart?
+Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart?
+'Twas her day to be young.  She was proud, she was fair.
+Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there?
+
+X.
+
+Now she turned, reached a hand; then a tall gondolier
+That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear,
+Shot sudden and swift and all silently
+And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . .
+It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer
+That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride,
+Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea;
+And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied.
+Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about,
+As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt.
+
+XI.
+
+Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night
+As a goddess might stand on that far wonder land
+Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death.
+I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath,
+As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand
+Her vestment of purple imperial, and white.
+Then the gondola shot! swift, sharp from the shore.
+There was never the sound of a song or of oar
+But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint Mark,
+And the lion loomed high o'er the sea in the dark.
+
+XII.
+
+Then I cried, "Quick!  Follow her.  Follow her.  Fast!
+Come!  Thrice double fare if you follow her true
+To her own palace door."  There was plashing of oar
+And rattle of rowlock. . . .  I sat leaning low
+Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped
+With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low.
+But only the oaths of the men as we passed
+When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro'
+The watery town.  Then a deep, distant roar--
+The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar.
+
+XIII.
+
+Then an oath.  Then a prayer!  Then a gust that made rents
+Through the yellow sailed fishers.  Then suddenly
+Came sharp forked fire!  Then far thunder fell
+Like the great first gun!  Ah, then there was route
+Of ships like the breaking of regiments
+And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell.
+Then tempest!  It lifted, it spun us about,
+Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea
+As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars--
+Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars.
+
+XIV.
+
+On!  On!  Through the foam, through the storm, through the town,
+She was gone.  She was lost in the wilderness
+Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow.
+I stood in my gondola.  Up and all down
+I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street
+Above me, below. . .  Twas only the beat
+Of the sea's sad heart. . .  Then I heard below
+The water-rat building, but nothing but that;
+Not even the sea bird screaming distress,
+As she lost her way in that wilderness.
+
+XV.
+
+I listened all night.  I caught at each sound;
+I clutched and I caught as a man that drown'd. . . .
+Only the sullen low growl of the sea
+Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships.
+Only the billow slow licking his lips,
+Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me;
+Growling and showing white teeth all the night,
+Reaching his neck and as ready to bite--
+Only the waves with their salt flood tears
+Fawning white stones of a thousand years.
+
+XVI.
+
+Only the birds in the wilderness
+Of column and dome and of glittering spire
+That thrust to heaven and held the fire
+Of the thunder still:  The bird's distress
+As he struck his wings in that wilderness,
+On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . .
+The night below and the night above;
+The water-rat building, the startled white dove,
+The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird's call
+The water-rat building, but that was all.
+
+XVII.
+
+Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post,
+The morning came silent and gray like a ghost
+Slow up the canal.  I leaned from the prow
+And listened.  Not even the bird in distress
+Screaming above through the wilderness;
+Not even the stealthy old water-rat now.
+Only the bell in the fisherman's tower
+Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour
+To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara
+For tawny fishers a-sea and pray.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+XVIII.
+
+My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn.
+The night that lay hard on the breast of earth,
+Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare,
+Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn. . . . .  
+I shall leave you here, with a leader fair;
+One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth.
+She shall lead you on through that Italy
+That the gods have loved; and may it be
+A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand,
+You wander the warm and the careless love-land.
+
+XIX.
+
+By the windy waters of the Michigan
+She invokes the gods. . . .  Be it bright or dim,
+Who does his endeavor as best he can
+Does bravely, indeed.  The rest is with Him.
+Let a new star dance in the Occident
+Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God
+And shines, o'er Chicago. . .  The Orient
+Is hoar with glories.  Let Illini sod
+Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain,
+And engines smoking along her plain.
+
+
+JOAQUIN MILLER.
+
+CHICAGO, NOV., 1875. 
+
+
+
+MAE MADDEN.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+SCENE.  Deck of an ocean steamer.
+Characters.  Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in general.
+Edith Jerrold, her daughter.
+Albert Madden, a young man on study intent.
+Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent.
+Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old classmate of the Maddens.
+Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady.
+
+
+"It's something like dying, I do declare," said Mae, and as she 
+spoke a suspicious-looking drop slid softly across her cheek, down 
+over the deck-railing, to join its original briny fellows in the 
+deep below.
+
+"What is like dying?" asked Eric.
+
+"Why, leaving the only world you know.  There, you see, papa and 
+mamma are fast fading away, and here we are traveling off at the 
+rate of ever so many miles an hour."
+
+"Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea."
+
+"Away from everything and everybody we know.  I do really think it 
+is like dying,--don't you, Mr. Mann?"  Mae turned abruptly and 
+faced the young man by her side.
+
+"People aren't apt to die in batches or by the half-dozen,' he 
+replied, coolly.  "If you were all by yourself, it would be more 
+like it, I suppose, but you are taking quite a slice of your own 
+world along with you, and really--"
+
+"And really pity is the very last article I have any use for.  You 
+are right.  I was only sorry for the moment.  'Eastward Ho' is a 
+very happy cry.  How differently we shall all take Europe," she 
+continued, in a moment.  "There is Albert, I honestly believe he 
+will live in his Baedeker just because he can see no further than 
+the covers of a book.  You need not laugh, for it is a fact that 
+people confined for years to a room can't see beyond its limits 
+when they are taken out into broader space, and I don't see why it 
+shouldn't be the same with a man who lives in his books as Albert 
+does."
+
+"He sees the world in his books," said Mr. Mann, with a little 
+spirit.
+
+"He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," replied Mae, 
+grandiloquently, "and Edith--"
+
+"Always sees just what he does," suggested Eric maliciously.
+
+"Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming suddenly a mighty patronage, 
+"I will not have you hit at Albert and Edith in this way.  It will 
+be very annoying to them.  They have a right to act just as 
+absurdly as they choose.  We none of us know how people who are 
+falling in love would act."
+
+No, the boys agreed this was quite true.
+
+"And I really do suppose they are falling in love, don't you?" 
+queried Mae.
+
+Yes, they did both believe it.
+
+Just here, up came the two subjects of conversation, looking, it 
+must be confessed, as much like one subject as any man and wife.
+
+"What are you talking of?" asked Edith, "Madame Tussaud or a French 
+salad?  No matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a foreign 
+flavor."
+
+"There you are mistaken," replied the frank Eric, "we were 
+discussing you two people, in the most homelike kind of a way."
+
+At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae scowled at Eric, who 
+opened his eyes amazedly, Norman Mann looked over the deck railing 
+and laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed near by, and 
+there was a grand tableau vivant for a few seconds.
+
+"O, come," cried Mae, "suppose we stop looking like a set of 
+illustrations for a phrenological journal, expressive of the 
+various emotions.  I was only speculating on the different sights 
+we should see in the same places.  Confess, now, Albert.  Won't 
+your eyes be forever hunting out old musty, dusty volumes?  Will 
+not books be your first pleasures in the sight-seeing line?"
+
+"O, no, pictures," cried Edith.
+
+"That is as you say," Mae demurely agreed.  "Pictures and books for 
+you two at any rate."
+
+"And churches."
+
+"For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for Eric, and amphitheatres 
+and battle fields for Mr. Mann."
+
+"And for yourself?"
+
+"The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of oranges, moonlight and a 
+boat if it please you."
+
+"By the way," suggested Albert, "about our plans; we really should 
+begin to agitate the matter at once."
+
+"Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard.  Let us agree to hoist the 
+white flag the day we sight land, else we shall settle down into a 
+regular War of the Roses and never decide," laughed Norman.
+
+"As there are six minds," continued Albert, "there will have to be 
+some giving up."
+
+"Why do you look at me?" enquired Mae.  "I am the very most 
+unselfish person in the world.  I'll settle down anywhere for the 
+winter, provided only that it is not in Rome."
+
+"But that is the very place," cried Edith, and Albert, and Mrs. 
+Jerrold from her camp-chair.
+
+"O, how dreadful!  The only way to prevent it will be for us to 
+stand firm, boys, and make it a tie."
+
+"But Norman is especially eager to go to Rome," said Edith, "and 
+that makes us four strong at once in favor of that city."
+
+"But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead Caesar's bones and dirty 
+beggars?  And mustn't one carry hundreds of dates at one's finger-
+tips to appreciate this, and that, and the other?  Is it not all 
+tremendously and overwhelmingly historical, and don't you have to 
+keep exerting your mind and thinking and remembering?  I would 
+rather go down to Southern Italy and look at lazzaroni lie on stone 
+walls, in red cloaks, as they do in pictures, and not be obliged to 
+topple off the common Italian to pile the gray stone with old 
+memories of some great dead man.  Everything is ghostly in Rome.  
+Now, there must be some excitement in Southern Italy.  There's 
+Vesuvius, and she isn't dead--like Nero--but a living demon, that 
+may erupt any night, and give you a little red grave by the sea for 
+your share."
+
+"She's not nearly through yet," laughed Edith, as Mae paused for 
+breath.
+
+"I'm only afraid," said Mae, "that after I had been down there a 
+week, I should forget English, buy a contadina costume, marry a 
+child of the sun, and run away from this big world with its puzzles 
+and lessons, and rights and wrongs.  Imagine me in my doorway as 
+you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and tired on your way--
+say to Sorrento.  I would dress my beautiful Italian all up in 
+scarlet flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his brown eyes and 
+take his brown hand, and then we would run along by the bay and 
+laugh at you stiff, grand world's folks as we skipped past you."
+
+"We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear," 
+said Norman Mann.
+
+"But, my dear Mae," added Albert, "though this is amusing, it is 
+utterly useless."
+
+"Amusing things always are," said Mae.
+
+"The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the 
+winter?"
+
+"Certainly, by all means, and if I don't like it, I'll run away to 
+Sorrento," and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a 
+fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly 
+pleasure in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a 
+sort of feeling he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to 
+define, though we have all known it, a delicious concoction of 
+pleasure and pain.  His eyes were fixed on Mae, now.  "What is it?" 
+she asked.  "You will like Rome, I am sure."  "No, I never like 
+what I think I shall not."
+
+"It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect 
+to like me," said he, in a lower tone.  "Why certainly, I do like 
+you very much," she replied, honestly.  "What a stupid question," 
+he thinks, vexedly.  "Why did I tell him I liked him?" she thinks, 
+blushingly.  So the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in 
+these two hearts as the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion 
+momently against the steamer's side.
+
+Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea 
+and fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get 
+the very quintessence of life on the ocean wave.  One morning Mrs. 
+Jerrold and Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts 
+of head devices in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket 
+of fruit.  The matron of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman, 
+a good type of genuine New England stock softened by city breeding.  
+New Englanders are so many propositions from Euclid, full of right 
+angles and straight lines, but easy living and the dressmaker's art 
+combine to turn the corners gently.  Edith was like her mother, but 
+softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood.  She was tall, almost 
+stately, with a good deal of American style, which at that time 
+happened to be straight and slender.  She was naturally reserved, 
+but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store of 
+adjectives and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had at 
+least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some 
+half-dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of them, with "My 
+dearest ----" and ending "Your devoted Edith."
+
+As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in 
+a delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,--Mae's and 
+Norman's.  They were in the middle of a conversation.  "Yes," Mae 
+was saying, "you do away with individuality altogether nowadays, 
+with your dreadful classifications.  It is all the same from 
+daffodils up to women."
+
+"How do we classify women, pray?"
+
+"In the mind of man," began Mae, as if she were reading, "there are 
+three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and 
+the woman's righters.  The first are pretty and silly; the second, 
+plain and useful; the third, mannish and odious.  The first wear 
+long trailing dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second 
+wear aprons and give you apple-dumplings, and the third want your 
+manly prerogatives, your dress-coat, your money, and your vote.  
+Flirt with the giddy butterflies, your first love was one.  First 
+loves always are.  Marry the busy bee.  Your mother was a busy bee.  
+Mothers always are.  And keep on the other side of the street from 
+the woman s righter as long as you can.  Alas! your daughter will 
+be one."
+
+"Well, isn't there any classifying on the other side?  Aren't there 
+horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?"
+
+"Perhaps so.  There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this 
+terrible army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert 
+here is the best known example."
+
+"What is it?" asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book, 
+for he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time.
+
+"They are the creatures," continued Mae, "who scorn joys and idle 
+pleasures.  They deal with the good of the many and the problems of 
+the universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the 
+March of Progress.  And what do they get for it all?  Something 
+like this.  Put down your book, I'm going to prophesy," and Mae 
+backed resolutely up against the railing and held her floating 
+scarfs and veils in a bunch at her throat, while she prophesied in 
+this way:
+
+"Behold me, direct lineal descendant of Albert Madden, speaking to 
+my children in the year 1995: 'What, children, want amusement?  
+Want to see the magic lantern to note the effects of light?  Alas! 
+how frivolous.  Listen, children, to the achievements of your great 
+ancestor, as reported by the Encyclopedia.  "A. Madden--promoter of 
+civilization and progress, chiefly known by his excellent theory 
+entitled The Number of Cells in a Human Brain compared to the 
+Working Powers of Man, and that remarkable essay, headed by this 
+formula: Given--10,000,000 laboring men, to find the number of 
+loaves of bread in the world."  Here, children, take these works.  
+Progressimus, you may have the theory, while Civilizationica reads 
+the essay.  Then change about.  Ponder them well, and while we walk 
+to the Museum later, tell me their errors.  Then I will show you 
+the preserved ears of the first man found in Boshland by P. T. 
+Barnum, jr.'  Oh, bosh," said Mae suddenly, letting fly her 
+streamers, "what a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century 
+leaders are.  You are devouring our green land, and some of us 
+butterflies would like to turn our yellow wings into solid shields 
+against you, if we could.  There, I've made a goose of myself again 
+on the old subject.  Edith, there's the lunch bell.  Take me down 
+before I say another word."  Exeunt feminines all.
+
+"Where did the child pick up all that?" queried Albert.
+
+"'All that' is in the air just now," answered Norman.  "It is a 
+natural reaction of a strong physical nature against the 
+utilitarian views of the day.  Miss Mae is a type of--"
+
+"O, nonsense, what prigs you are," interrupted Eric, "Mae is jolly.  
+Do stop your reasoning about her.  If you are bound to be a potato 
+yourself to help save the masses from starvation, don't grumble 
+because she grew a flower.  Come, let us go to lunch too."
+
+Conversation was not always of this sort.  One evening, not long 
+after, there was a moon, and Edith and Albert were missing.  Eric 
+was following a blue-eyed girl along the deck, and Mae and Norman 
+wandered off by themselves up to this same hurricane deck again.  
+The moonlight was wonderful.  It touched little groups here and 
+there and fell full on the face of a woman in the steerage, who sat 
+with her arms crossed on her knee and her face set eastward.  She 
+was singing, and her voice rose clearly above the puff of the 
+engine and the jabber below.  There was a chorus to the song, in 
+which rough men and tired looking women joined.  The song was about 
+home, and once in a while the girl unclasped her arms and passed 
+her hands over her eyes.  Mae and Norman Mann looked at her 
+silently.  "I suppose we don't know when we make pictures," said 
+Mae.  "Don't we?" asked Norman pointedly.  Mae looked very 
+reprovingly out from her white wraps at him, but he smiled back 
+composedly and admiringly, and drew her hand a trifle closer in his 
+arm.  And saucy Mae began to feel in that sort of purring mood 
+women come to when they drop the bristling, ready-for-fight air 
+with which they start on an acquaintance.  Perhaps, if the steamer 
+had been a sailing-vessel, there would have been no story to tell 
+about Mae Madden, for a long line of evenings, and girls singing 
+songs, and hurricane decks by moonlight, are dangerous things.  But 
+the vessel was a fast steamer, and was swiftly nearing land again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+ROME, February, 18--.
+
+MY DEAR MAMMA:--Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is impressed.  
+The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over Madonnas 
+and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul's house to Paul's walks 
+and Paul's drives and Paul's stand at the prisoner's bar, and reads 
+the Acts through five times a day, in the most religious and 
+Romanistic spirit.  No one could make more fuss over a patron 
+saint, I am sure.  For my part, I feel as if I were in the most 
+terrible ghost story.  The old Romans are all around me.  
+Underneath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and in the air 
+I half see a constant flashing of swords and scars and blood, and I 
+can't even put my foot on the Roman pavement without wondering 
+which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is walking over.  I 
+shouldn't mind trampling old Caligula, but I don't like the thought 
+on general principles.  I feel all out of place, so modern and 
+fixed up and flimsy.  If I could get into old picturesque clothes 
+and out of the English-speaking quarter, I should not be so 
+oppressed and might worship Rome.  But I seriously think I shall 
+die if I stay here much longer.  There's a spirit-malaria that eats 
+into my life.  I feel as if all the volumes of Roman history bound 
+in heavy vellum, that papa has in his study, were laid right on top 
+of my little heart, so that every time it beats, it thumps against 
+them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than dyspepsia.  If I 
+could only get out on a New England hillside, where there were no 
+graves more important than those of grasshoppers and butterflies!  
+What should I do when I got there?  Take off my hat, and scream for 
+joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with rich, 
+warm, untainted earth and young life.
+
+But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn't be writing it, if 
+I hadn't just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus.  To think of 
+Albert's insisting upon going there the very first thing!  But so 
+he did, and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, 
+and saw everybody's tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I 
+stuck a pin in Albert's arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from 
+crying.  Then, oh, how shocked they looked.  Even Mr. Mann seemed 
+ashamed of me.  When we reached the place, we each took a candle 
+and the guide led the way down into the bowels of the earth.  
+Mamma, they are very unpleasant.  There were two German youths 
+along, and green lizards crawled all over.  They winked at me.  The 
+way grew so narrow that we had to walk one by one through lines of 
+wall perforated with holes for dead bodies.  Once in a while we 
+would come to a small chapel, for miserable variety's sake, and be 
+told to admire some very old, very wretched painting.  Jonah and 
+the whale were represented in a double-barreled miracle picture.  
+Not only was the whale about to swallow Jonah, but he was only as 
+large as a good-sized brook trout, while Jonah towered away above 
+him like a Goliath.  I found myself wondering if the guide had 
+convulsions, and, if he should have one now, and die, how many days 
+would pass before we should eat each other.  And would they take me 
+first, because I am youngest and plumpest?  Albert would make good 
+soup bones, and Eric's shoulder serve as a delicious fore-quarter.  
+And by the time we came to the top again, I was all ready to cry.  
+And then, mamma, I did an awful thing.  Mr. Mann exclaimed: "Why, 
+Miss Mae, how frightened you look.  You are quite white."  And I 
+answered very sharply: "What a disagreeable man you are.  I'm not 
+frightened at all."  I said it in a dreadful tone, and how his face 
+changed.  He looked so strangely.  Everybody was still but Albert, 
+and he said, "Why, Mae, you are very rude to Mr. Mann."  Even then 
+I didn't apologize.  So here we are at sword's points, and all the 
+rest sympathizing with my foe, who is only on the defensive.  Why 
+am I such a belligerent?  I can't conceive where I got my nature, 
+unless from that very disagreeable dear old grandpapa of papa's, 
+who fought the whole world all his life.  But how egotistic I am, 
+even to my mother.  Of course you want to know how we are lodged 
+and clothed and fed.  We have taken apartments, as I presume Albert 
+wrote you, on the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, quite near the 
+Costanzi hotel, which is in the height of the fashion as a hotel; 
+near too, which is better, to Mr. Story's studio and the old 
+Barberini palace and the Barberini square and fountains.  Off 
+behind, is that terrible church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery 
+underneath of bones and skulls and such horrors.  I like the 
+apartments very much, principally because I have made three staunch 
+friends and one good enemy, in the kitchen.  The padrona,--she's 
+the woman who keeps the house, and serves us, too, in this case--
+though Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the table and care for 
+our rooms--well, the padrona is my first friend.  Her cousin, a 
+handsome southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not only 
+my friend, but my instructress.  She tells me lovely stories about 
+her home and the peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor 
+with Giovanni,--friend number three and eldest son of the padrona,--
+and even Roberto, my enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes 
+his naughty mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin's 
+name.  I am so glad I studied Italian as hard as I did for my 
+music, for it comes very easily to me now, and already I slip the 
+pretty words from my halting tongue much more smoothly and quickly 
+than you would imagine I could.  Mrs. Jerrold isn't quite 
+satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only she doesn't believe 
+in letting us girls stay at large hotels.  She and Edith are 
+shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off quietly 
+and say nothing about it.  It is strange for me to have to keep 
+anything secret, but I am learning how.
+
+As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blue-
+black silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd 
+loopings here and there where you don't expect to find them.  What 
+can't a Parisian dressmaker do?  They have such a wonderful idea of 
+appropriateness, it seems to me.  Now, at home you know we girls 
+always wear the same sort of thing, but Madame H---- says no, 
+Edith, and I should dress very differently; and now Edith's clothes 
+all have a flow, and sweep, and grace about them, and her silks 
+rustle in a stately way as she walks, while my dresses haven't any 
+trimming to speak of, but are cut in a clinging, square sort of 
+way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle, that makes me feel 
+half the time as if I were playing soldier in a lady-like fashion.  
+But what a budget this is.  How shocked the people here would be.  
+They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker, like the 
+Bible,--and here am I crushing down Rome, and raising Paris on top 
+of it.  Indeed, I can't help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating.  
+It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your powers of 
+enjoyment.  Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous 
+letters, won't you; for I do love you dearly.
+
+Your loving daughter,
+
+MAE.
+
+
+Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, 
+like a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris 
+gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted 
+manner.
+
+"Why, you look like a different girl," cried Eric, as she entered 
+the parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting.  "Mrs. Jerrold, 
+Edith, and Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you are left to 
+my tender care; will you ride or walk?"
+
+"How can you ask?  My feet are quite wild.  No wonder I am a 
+different girl.  Are we not going to the Pincian hill to look at 
+the live world and people?  I have just unlocked the stop-gates and 
+let the blood bound in my veins as it wants to."
+
+"It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should say from your long 
+face to-day."
+
+"O, it has only been trying to keep step with the march of the 
+ages, or some such stately tread, but it was hard work, and now the 
+dear life of me hops, skips and jumps, like this," and Mae seized 
+her brother and danced across the room, stopping very near Mr. 
+Mann, who stood with his back to them, drumming on the window pane.  
+She looked at him quizzically and half raised her eyebrows.
+
+Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his outspoken way: "You owe 
+him an apology, Mae, for this morning's rudeness."
+
+Mr. Mann turned quickly.  "I am surprised, Eric.  Let your sister 
+find out for herself when she is rude."
+
+"Bless me," cried Eric, "what is the row?"
+
+Mae looked determined.  "Are you going to the Pincian with us?" she 
+asked.
+
+"No, I am going to stay home."
+
+"Well, good-bye, then.  Come, Eric."  The door closed behind them.
+
+Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched them walk away.  Mae, with 
+her eager, restless, fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric, 
+with his boy-man air and his student swing and happy-go-lucky toss 
+of his head.  Mr. Mann smiled and then he sighed.  "That's a good 
+boy, so square and fair and merry--and a queer girl," he added.  
+"Rome isn't the place for her.  She must get away, though why I 
+should take care for her, or worry about her, little vixen.  I 
+don't see."  Still he smiled as one would over a very winning, very 
+wicked child, and shortly after took his hat and went to the 
+Pincio, after all.
+
+Meantime, the brother and sister had walked gaily along, passed the 
+Spanish Steps, and were on the Pincian hill.  Here, Mae was indeed 
+happy.  The fine equipages and dark, rich beauty of the Italians 
+delighted her, and she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched 
+the carriages drive round and round, and criticised, and admired, 
+and laughed like two idle children.  They bought some flowers, and 
+Mae sat pulling them to pieces, when they caught sight, down the 
+pathway, of two approaching Piedmontese officers.
+
+"O," cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and clasped her hands, and 
+sprang to her feet, "O, Eric, are they gods or men?"
+
+The Piedmontese officer is godlike.  He must be of a certain 
+imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow 
+moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by 
+southern blood, give him a strange fascination.  The cold, manly 
+beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and 
+lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon.  
+There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous 
+langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at the 
+very head of masculine beauty.  Add to the charms of his physique, 
+the jauntiest, most bewitching of uniforms, the clinking spurs, the 
+shining buttons, the jacket following every line of his figure, and 
+no wonder maidens' hearts seek him out always and young pulses beat 
+quicker at his approach.
+
+Mae's admiration was simply rapturous.  Utterly regardless of the 
+pretty picture she herself made, of her vivid coloring and 
+sparkling beauty, she stood among her dropped flowers until the two 
+pairs of eyes were fixed upon her.  Then she became suddenly aware 
+of her attitude and with quick feminine cunning endeavored to 
+transfer her admiration to some beautiful horses cantering by, 
+exclaiming in Italian, that the officers might surely understand 
+she was thinking only of the fine animals: "O, what wonderful 
+horses!"
+
+The foreign pronunciation, Eric's amusement, Mae's confusion, were 
+not lost upon the men.  Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and 
+pride gratified.  They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a 
+corner and quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric 
+and Mae were seated.  They found the brother and sister just 
+arising, and followed them slowly.
+
+An Italian is quick to detect secrets.  The two had not proceeded 
+far before one said to the other; "Eh, Luigi, we are not the only 
+interested party."
+
+Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers 
+gazing at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes 
+full of admiration.  He shrugged his shoulders slightly.  "Bah, 
+they gaze in that way at all womankind.  See, now they are watching 
+the next one," and as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to 
+stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer to the side of 
+her hook-nosed old duenna:
+
+"It is not those loungers that I noticed," replied the other.  Look 
+there," and he waved his hand lightly toward the left, where, under 
+a large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, stood a young 
+man.
+
+"Ah," said Luigi, still incredulous, "he sees nothing but Rome; he 
+is fresh from over the seas."
+
+"No, no, watch his eyes," replied the other.
+
+They were assuredly fixed, with a keen searching glance, on a 
+little form before them, and as Eric and Mae suddenly turned to the 
+left, the stranger, half carelessly, but very quickly, crossed to 
+another path, from which he could watch them, but be, in his turn, 
+unobserved.
+
+"Jealous," laughed Luigi, shrugging his shoulders again.  "Her 
+lover, probably."
+
+"No," replied Bero, "but he may be some time."  Then after a 
+moment's pause, "Good evening," he said carelessly.  "I am going to 
+say my prayers at vespers.  I've been a sorry scamp of late."
+
+Luigi laughed disdainfully and lightly.  "You want to get rid of 
+me?  Well, be it so.  I don't want to lose my heart over a little 
+foreigner.  I have other game.  However, Lillia shall not know of 
+it.  Addio, Bero."  So Luigi went off the other way, and Bero, with 
+a flushed face, followed Mae at a distance, and kept an eye on the 
+stranger, flattering himself that he was quite unnoticed by those 
+sharp, keen eyes.  He was mistaken, Norman Mann had seen the 
+officers before they saw him, had watched their footsteps, and had 
+a pretty clear idea of the whole affair.
+
+Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, and with that vague, 
+delightful feeling of something exciting in the air.  She knew 
+there was an officer behind her, because she had heard the clicking 
+spurs, but she only guessed that he might be one of the two who had 
+passed--the taller, perhaps,--which, of course, he was.  She had, 
+moreover, in some mysterious way, caught sight of a figure 
+resembling Norman Mann, trying, she thought, to avoid her.  Her 
+spirits rose with the half-mystery, and she grew brighter and 
+prettier and more magnetic to the two followers as she tossed her 
+shoulders slightly and now and then half-turned her sunny head.
+
+As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of any secrets.  He fancied 
+himself and his pretty, nice, little sister all alone by their very 
+selves, and he went so far as to expatiate on the vastness of the 
+world, and how in this crowd there was no other life that bordered 
+or touched on theirs.
+
+To which Mae replied: "You don't know; you may fall in love with 
+one of these very Italian girls, or my future husband may be 
+walking behind me now."  When she had said this, she flushed 
+scarlet and was very much ashamed of herself in her heart.
+
+"We must go home now," Eric replied, quite disdaining such 
+sybilistic remarks.  So they left the hill and went down the Steps 
+in the rich afternoon light, and so homewards.  Of course the 
+Italian and Mr. Mann still followed them; Norman on the other side 
+of the street, the Italian in a slyer, less conspicuous manner, by 
+taking side streets, or the next parallel pavement, and appearing 
+only at every corner in the distance.  He appeared, however, close 
+at hand, as Mae and Eric turned into their lodgings.  His eyes met 
+Mae's.  She blushed involuntarily as she recognized him, and at 
+once, in that moment, there was an invisible half-acquaintance 
+established between the two.  If they should ever meet again, they 
+would remember each other.
+
+Mae crept off to the kitchen that evening, to beg for another of 
+Lisetta's stories, and quite forgot her walk, the officer, and 
+Norman Mann while she listened to the
+
+
+STORY OF TALILA.
+
+
+Talila was a young girl, destined to be a nun.  She was a naughty 
+little girl and would make wry faces at the thought, and wish she 
+could be a man, a soldier or sailor, instead of being a woman and a 
+nun; and as she grew older she would dance all the time, and didn't 
+say her prayers very much, and was so bad that the priest sent for 
+her to see him.  He told her how wicked she was, and that, too, 
+when she was to be the bride of the church; but she said the church 
+had many, many brides, and she would rather be the bride of 
+Giovanni; and that she loved red-cheeked babies better than beads, 
+and songs were nicer than prayers.  Should she sing him such a 
+pretty, gay one she knew?  And the priest could hardly keep from 
+laughing at the bright-eyed, naughty, naughty Talila.  But he said: 
+"If Giovanni does not want to marry you, will you then become the 
+bride of the church?"  And Talila laughed aloud and tossed her 
+head.  "Giovanni longs to marry me, Father," she said, "I know that 
+already."  But the Father sent for Giovanni and gave him money if 
+he would say he did not want to marry Talila.  At first he would 
+not say so, but the Father showed him a purse all full of silver, 
+which Talila's mother had brought him, for it was she who had vowed 
+Talila should be a nun.  Then the Father said: "This is yours if 
+you say as I wish, and if not, you shall be cursed forever, and all 
+your children shall be cursed, because you have married the bride 
+of the church."  Then Giovanni crossed himself and took the bag of 
+silver, and the priest sent for Talila, and she heard her Giovanni 
+say he didn't want to marry her--she had better be a nun; and she 
+threw up her brown arms and screamed aloud, and fell down as if 
+dead.  And afterwards she was very ill, and when she grew better 
+she had forgotten everything and was only a little child, and she 
+loves little children, and is ever with them, but she calls them 
+all Giovanni.  They play together by the bay through the long day, 
+and at night she takes them to their mothers, and goes alone to her 
+home.  But alas! she never tells her beads, or prays a prayer, and 
+sorry things are said of her--that God gave her up because she left 
+Him.  But the children all love her, and she loves them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Edith and Mae had a quarrel one morning.  Mae's tongue was sharp, 
+but although she breezed quickly, she calmed again very soon.  The 
+latter fact availed her little this time, for Edith maintained a 
+cold displeasure that would not be melted by any bright speeches or 
+frank apologies.  "Edith," said little Miss Mae, quite humbly for 
+her, as she put on her hat, and drew on her gloves, "Edith, aren't 
+you going out with me?"  "What for?" asked that young person 
+indifferently.
+
+"Why--for fun, and to make up.  Haven't you forgiven me yet?"
+
+Edith did not reply directly.  "I am going out with mamma to buy 
+our dominoes for the Carnival, and to see our balcony.  Albert has 
+engaged one for us, on the corner of the Corso and Santa Maria e 
+Jesu.  I suppose you can go too.  There will be an extra seat.  
+We'll come home by the Pincian Hill."
+
+"Thank you," said Mae, "but I will get Eric and go for a tramp," 
+and she left the room with compressed lips and flushed cheeks.  In 
+the hall were Albert, Eric and Norman, talking busily.  "Where are 
+you going Eric, mayn't I go too, please?"  "I'm sorry Mae, but this 
+is an entirely masculine affair--five-button gloves and parasols 
+are out of the question."
+
+"O, Ric, I am half lonely."  Mae laughed a little hysterically.  At 
+that moment she caught Mr. Mann's eyes, full of sympathy.  "But 
+goodbye," she added, and opened the door, "I'm going."
+
+"Alone?" asked Norman, involuntarily.
+
+"Yes, alone," replied Mae.  "Have you any objections, boys?"  Eric 
+and Albert were talking busily and did not hear her.  Norman Mann 
+held open the door for her to pass out, and smiled as she thanked 
+him.  She smiled back.  She came very near saying, "I'm sorry I was 
+rude the other day, forgive me," and he came very near saying, "May 
+I go with you, Miss Mae?"  But they neither of them spoke, and 
+Norman closed the door with a sigh, and Mae walked away with a 
+sigh.  It was only a little morning's experience, sharp words, 
+misunderstandings; but the child was young, far from home and her 
+mother, and it seemed hard to her.  She was in a very wild mood, a 
+very hard mood, and yet all ready to be softened by a kind, 
+sympathetic word, so nearly do extremes of emotion meet.
+
+"There's no one to care a pin about me," said she to herself, "not 
+a pin.  I have a great mind to go and take the veil or drown myself 
+in the Tiber.  Then they would be bound to search for me, and 
+convent vows and Tiber mud hold one fast.  No, I won't, I'll go and 
+sit in the Pincian gardens and talk Italian with the very first 
+person I meet and forget all about myself.  I wish Mr. Mann 
+wouldn't pity me.  Dear me, here I am remembering these forlorn 
+people again.  I wish I could see mamma and home this morning,--the 
+dear old library.  Why the house is shut up and mamma's south.  I 
+forgot that, and here am I all alone.  It is like being dead.  
+There, I have dropped a tear on my tie and spoiled it!  Besides, if 
+one is dead, there comes Heaven.  Why shouldn't I play dead, and 
+make my own Heaven?"  Here Mae seated herself, for she was on the 
+Pincio by this time, and looked off at the view, at that wonderful 
+view of St. Peter's, the Tiber, all the domes and rising ruins and 
+afar the campagna.  "I wouldn't make my Heaven here," thought this 
+dreadful Mae, "not if it is beautiful.  I'd not stay here a single 
+other day.  Bah no!" and she shook her irreverent little fist right 
+down at the Eternal City.
+
+At this moment, a small beggar, who had been pleading unnoticed at 
+her side, was lifted from his feet by a powerful hand, and a shower 
+of soft Italian imprecations fell on Mae's ear.  She sprang up 
+quickly, "No, no," she cried in Italian, "how dare you hurt a 
+harmless boy?"  She lifted her face full toward that of the man who 
+had inspired her wrath, and her eyes met those of the Piedmontese 
+officer.  She blushed scarlet.
+
+"Pardon, a thousand pardons," began he.  "It was for your sake, 
+Signorina.  I saw you shake your hand that he should leave you, and 
+I fancied that the little scamp was troubling the foreign lady."
+
+Mae laughed frankly, although she was greatly confused.  The 
+officer and the beggar boy behind him waited expectantly.  "I shook 
+my hand at my thoughts," she explained.  "I did not see the boy.  
+Forgive me, Signor, for my hasty words."
+
+The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly.  He threw a handful of 
+small coin at the beggar, and bade him go.  Then he turned again to 
+Mae.  "I am sorry, Signorina, that your thoughts are sad.  I should 
+think they would all be like sweet smiles."  He said this with an 
+indescribable delicacy and gallantry, as if he half feared to speak 
+to her, but his sympathy must needs express itself.
+
+Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild mood.  She did not 
+realize what she was doing.  She had just broken down all barriers 
+in her mind, was dead to her old life, and ready to plan for 
+Heaven.  And here before her stood a wonderful, sympathizing, new 
+friend, who spoke in a strange tongue, lived in a strange land was 
+as far removed from her old-time people and society as an 
+inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel.  She accepted him under her 
+excitement, as she would have accepted them.  No waiting for an 
+introduction, no formal getting-acquainted talk, no reserve.  She 
+looked into the devoted, interested eyes above her, and said 
+frankly:
+
+"I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome.  I thought I would like 
+to play I was dead, and plan out a Heaven for myself.  It should 
+not be in Rome.  And then I suppose I shook my fist."
+
+"Where would your Heaven be?" asked the Piedmontese, falling 
+quickly, with ready southern sympathy, into her mood.  Mae seated 
+herself on the bench and made room for him at her side.
+
+"Where should it be?" she repeated.  "Down among the children of 
+the sun, all out in the rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of 
+Naples, I think, with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, it would be 
+in Sorrento that I should find my heaven."
+
+The officer smiled under his long moustaches.  "For three days,--at 
+a hotel, Signorina."
+
+"No, no; with the peasants.  I am tired and sick of books, and 
+people, and reasons.  Shall I give you a day of my Heaven?"
+
+Bero smiled and bent slightly forward and rested his hand lightly 
+on the stick of her parasol, which lay between them.  "Go on," he 
+said.
+
+"I would fill my apron with sweet flowers and golden fruit--great 
+oranges, and those fragrant, delicious tiny mandarins--and I would 
+get a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-babbling their 
+pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go down to the bay and get in an 
+anchored boat, and lie there all the morning, catching the sunlight 
+in my eyes, trimming the brown babies and the boat with flowers, 
+looking off at the water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, 
+and laughing, and playing, and enjoying.  Later, there'd be a run 
+on the beach, and a ride on a donkey, and a dance, with delirious 
+music and frolic.  And then the moon and quiet,--and I would steal 
+away from the crowd, and take a little boat, and float and drift--"
+
+"Alone?" asked Bero, softly.  "Surely, you wouldn't condemn a 
+mountaineer's yellow moustache, or a soldier's spurs and sword, if 
+at heart he was really a child of the sun also?  May I share your 
+day of Heaven?  It would be paradise for me, too."  All this in the 
+same soft, deferential manner.
+
+"Well, well,' half laughed, half sighed Mae.  "All this is a dream, 
+unless, indeed, I go home with Lisetta."
+
+"Who is Lisetta?"
+
+"Our padrona's cousin.  She is here on a visit.  She lives within a 
+mile of Sorrento, on the coast.  She goes home at the end of 
+Carnival.  Oh, how I do long for Carnival," continued Mae, frankly 
+and confidentially.  "Don't you?  I am like a child over it, I am 
+trying already to persuade Eric--that is my brother--to take me 
+down on the Corso the last night, for the Mocoletti.  It would be 
+much better fun than staying on our balcony."
+
+"Where is your balcony?" asked Bero, stroking his long moustaches.
+
+"It is on the corner of Maria e Jesu, and if I ever see you coming 
+by, I shall be tempted to pepper your pretty uniform.  How 
+beautiful it is!"
+
+"Yes," replied Bero, again gazing proudly down at his lithe figure, 
+in its well-fitting clothes, "but I would be willing to be showered 
+with confetti daily to see you.  How shall I know you?  What is to 
+be the color of your domino?"  And he bent forward, hitting his 
+spurs against the paving stones, flashing his deep eyes, and half 
+reaching out his hand, in that same tender, respectful way.
+
+Mae saw the sunlight strike his hair; she half heard his deep 
+breath; and, like a flood, there suddenly swept over her the 
+knowledge that this new friend, this sympathizing soul, was an 
+unknown man, and that she was a girl.  What had she done?  What 
+could she do?  Confusion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her.  
+She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, that were growing 
+bolder and more tender in their gaze.  "I--I--" she began, and just 
+at this very inauspicious moment, while she sat there, flushed, by 
+the stranger's side, the clatter of swiftly-approaching wheels 
+sounded, and a carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jerrold, 
+Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann.  They all saw her.
+
+Mae laughed.  It was such a dreadful situation that it was funny, 
+and she laughed again.  "Those are my friends," she said, in a low 
+voice.  "We can walk away," replied the officer, and turned his 
+face in the opposite direction.  "It is too late; and, besides, why 
+should we?"  And Mae looked full in his face, then turned to the 
+carriage, which was close upon them.
+
+"How do you all do?" she cried, gleefully and bravely.  "Isn't 
+there room for me in there?  Mrs. Jerrold, I would like to 
+introduce Signor--your name?"--she said, quite clearly, in Italian, 
+turning to the officer.
+
+"Bero," he replied.
+
+"Signor Bero.  He was very kind, and saved me from--from a little 
+beggar boy."
+
+"You must have been in peril, indeed," remarked Mrs. Jerrold, 
+bowing distantly to Bero, and beckoning the coachman, as Mae sprang 
+into the carriage, to drive on.  "I am sorry to put you on the box, 
+Norman," Mrs. Jerrold added, as Mae took the seat, in silence, that 
+Mr. Mann had vacated for her, "and I hope Miss Mae is also."  But 
+Mae didn't hear this.  She was plucking up courage in her heart, 
+and assuming a saucy enough expression, that sat well on her bright 
+face.  Indeed, she was a pretty picture, as she sat erect, with 
+lips and nostrils a trifle distended, and her head a little in the 
+air.  The Italian thought so, as he walked away, smiling softly, 
+clicking his spurs and stroking his moustache; and Norman Mann 
+thought so too, as he tapped his cane restlessly on the dash-board 
+and scowled at the left ear of the off horse.  The party preserved 
+an amazed and stiff silence, as they drove homeward.
+
+"Eric," cried Norman, very late that same night.  "Do be sober, I 
+have something to say to you about Miss Mae."
+
+"Norman, old boy, how can a fellow of my make be sober when he has 
+drunk four glasses of wine, waltzed fifteen times, and torn six 
+flounces from a Paris dress?  Why, man, I am delirious, I am.  Tra, 
+la, la, tra, la, la.  Oh, Norman, if you could have heard that 
+waltz," and Eric seized his companion in his big arms and started 
+about the room in a mad dance.  You are Miss Hopkins, Norman, you 
+are.  Here goes--" but Norman struck out a bold stroke that nearly 
+staggered Eric and broke loose.  "For Heaven's sake, Eric, stop 
+this fooling; I want to speak to you earnestly."
+
+"Evidently," replied Eric, with excited face, "forcibly also.  
+Blows belong after words, not before," and the big boy tramped 
+indignantly off to bed.
+
+Norman Mann was in earnest truly, forcible also, for he opened his 
+mouth to let out a very expressive word as Eric left the room.  It 
+did him good seemingly, for he strode up and down more quietly.  At 
+last he sat down and began to talk with himself.  "Norman Mann, 
+you've got to do it all alone," he said.  "Albert and Edith and 
+Aunt Martha are too vexed and shocked to do the little rebel any 
+good.  Ric, oh, dear, Ric is a silly boy, God bless him, and here I 
+am doomed to make that child hate me, and with no possible 
+authority over her, or power, for that matter, trying to keep her 
+from something terribly wild.  If they don't look out, she will 
+break loose.  I know her well, and there's strong character under 
+this storm a-top, if only some one could get at it.  Damn it."  
+Norman grew forcible again.  "Why can't I keep my silly eyes away 
+from her, and go off with the fellows.  You see," continued Norman, 
+still addressing his patient double, "she is a rebel, and--pshaw, I 
+dare say it is half my fancy, but I hate that long moustached 
+officer.  I wish he would be summoned to the front and be shot.  O, 
+I forgot, there's no war.  Well, then, I wish he would fall in love 
+with any body but Mae.  It must be late.  Ric didn't leave that 
+little party very early, I'm sure, but I can't sleep.  I'll get 
+down my Sismondi and read awhile.  I wonder if that child is 
+feeling badly now.  I half believe she is--but here's my book."
+
+Yes, Mae was feeling badly, heart-brokenly, all alone in her room.  
+After a long, harrowing talk with Mrs. Jerrold, at the close of 
+which she had received commands never to go out alone in Rome, 
+because it wasn't proper, she had been allowed to depart for her 
+own room.  Here she closed the door leading into Mrs. Jerrold's and 
+Edith's apartment, and opened her window wide, and held her head 
+out in the night air--the poisonous Roman air.  The street was very 
+quiet.  Now and then some late wayfarer passed under the light at 
+the corner, but Mae had, on the whole, a desolate outlook--high, 
+dark buildings opposite, and black clouds above, with only here and 
+there a star peeping through.
+
+She had taken down her long hair, thrown off her dress, and half 
+wrapped herself in a shawl, out of which her bare arms stretched as 
+she leaned on the deep window seat.  She looked like the first 
+woman--of the Darwinian, not the Biblical, Creation.  There was a 
+wild, half-hunted expression on her face that was like the set air 
+of an animal brought suddenly to bay.  She thought in little jerks, 
+quick sentences that were almost like the barking growls with which 
+a beast lashes itself to greater fury.
+
+"They treated me unfairly.  They had no right.  I shall choose my 
+own friends.  How dare they accuse me of flirting?  I flirt, pah!  
+I'd like to run away.  This stupid, stupid life!"  And so on till 
+the sentences grew more human.  "I suppose Mr. Mann thinks I am 
+horrid, but I don't care.  I wish I could see Eric, he wouldn't 
+blame me so.  What a goose I am to mind anyway.  The Carnival is 
+coming!  Even these old tombs must give way for ten whole riotous 
+days.  I must make them madly merry days.  I wonder how I will look 
+in my domino.  I suppose the pink one is mine."
+
+So Miss Mae dried her eyes, picked her deshabille self from the 
+window seat, turned up the light, slipped into her pink and white 
+carnival attire, and walked to the window again.
+
+"This is the Corso all full of people, and I'll pelt them merrily, 
+so, and so, and so!"  She reached forth her bare, round arm into 
+the darkness, and looked down, where, full under the street light, 
+gazing up at her, stood the Piedmontese officer.
+
+It was at that very moment that Norman Mann put down his Sismondi, 
+and looked from his window also.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mae met Mr. Mann at the breakfast table the next morning without 
+the least embarrassment.  Indeed, the little flutter in her talk 
+could easily be attributed to unusually high spirits and an excited 
+and pleased fancy.  That was how Norman Mann translated it, of 
+course.  Really, the flutter was a genuine stirring of her heart 
+with inquietude, timidity and semi-repentance; but Mae couldn't say 
+this, and it's only what one says out that can be reckoned on in 
+this world.  So Norman Mann, who saw only the bright cheeks and 
+eyes and restless quickening of an eager girl and did not see the 
+palpitating feminine heart inside, was displeased and half-cold.
+
+Could any one be long cold to Mae Madden?  She believed not.  She 
+was quite accustomed to lightning-like white heats of anger in 
+those with whom she came in contact, but coldness was out of her 
+line.  Still she met the occasion well.  "Shall I give you some 
+coffee?" she asked, pleasantly.  "We breakfast all alone, until 
+Eric appears.  Mrs. Jerrold is not well, and Edith and Albert are 
+off for Frascati."
+
+"Poor child; how much alone she is," he thought to himself.
+
+"I understand we all go to the play tonight?" queried Mae.
+
+"The thought of Shakspeare dressed in Italian is not pleasant to 
+me," said Mr. Mann, after a silence of a few minutes.
+
+"I am quite longing to see him in his new clothes.  There is so 
+much softness and beauty in Italian that I expect to gain new ideas 
+from hearing the play robed in more flowing phrases.  Shakspeare 
+certainly is for all the world."
+
+"But Shakspeare's words are so strongly chosen that they are a 
+great element in his great plays.  And a translation at best is 
+something of a parody, especially a translation from a northern 
+tongue, with its force and backbone, so to speak, into a southern, 
+serpentine, gliding language.  You have heard the absurd rendering 
+of that passage from Macbeth where the witches salute him with 
+'Hail to thee, Macbeth!  Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!' into such 
+French as 'Comment vous portez vous, Monsieur Macbeth; comment vous 
+portez vous, Monsieur Thane de Cawdor!"  A translation must pass 
+through the medium of another mind, and other minds like 
+Shakspeare's are hard to find."
+
+Norman spoke with so much reverence for Mae's greatest idol that 
+her heart warmed and she smiled approval, though for argument's 
+sake she remained on the other side.
+
+"Isn't a translation more like an engraver's art, and aren't fine 
+engravings to be sought and admired even when we know the great 
+original in its glory of color?  Then all writing is only 
+translation, not copying.  Shakspeare had to translate the tongues 
+he found in stones, the books he found in brooks, with twenty-six 
+little characters and his great mind, into what we all study, and 
+love, and strive after.  But he had to use these twenty-six 
+characters in certain hard, Anglo-Saxon forms and confine himself 
+to them.  When he wanted to talk about
+
+
+     "fen-sucked fogs,"
+
+
+and such damp, shivery places, he is all right, but when he sings 
+of 'love's light wings,' and all that nonsense, he is impeded; now 
+open to him 'Italian, the language of angels'--you know the old 
+rhyme--and see what a chance he has among the "liquid l's and bell-
+voiced m's and crushed tz's."  To-night you will hear Desdemona 
+call Othello 'Il mio marito,' in a way that will start the tears.  
+What are the stiff English words to that?  'My husband!'  Husband 
+is a very uneuphonious name, I think."
+
+Norman Mann smiled.  "Another cup of coffee, if you please--not 
+quite as sweet as the last," and he passed his cup.  "I believe 
+there is always a charm in a novel word that has not been 
+commonized by the crowd.  'Dear' means very little to us nowadays, 
+because every school girl is every other school girl's 'dear,' and 
+elderly ladies 'my dear' the world at large, in a pretty and 
+benevolent way.  So with the words 'husband' and 'wife'; we hear 
+them every day in commonest speech--'the coachman and his wife,' or 
+'Sally Jones's husband,'--but I take it this is when we stand 
+outside.  That wonderful little possessive pronoun MY has a great, 
+thrilling power.  'My husband' will be as fine to your ears as 'il 
+mio marito,' which has, after all, a slippery, uncertain sound; and 
+as for 'my wife'--"
+
+At that moment the coffee cup, which was on its way back, had 
+reached the middle of the table, where by right it should have been 
+met and guided by the steadier, masculine hand; Norman's hand was 
+there in readiness, but instead of gently removing the cup from 
+Mae's clasp, it folded itself involuntarily about the white, round 
+wrist, as he paused on these last words.  Was it the little 
+possessive pronoun that sent the sudden thrill through the 
+unexpecting wrist?  At any rate it trembled; the cup, the saucer, 
+the coffee, the spoon, followed a well known precedent, and "went 
+to pieces all at once;" "all at once and nothing first just as 
+bubbles do when they burst."  And so alas! did the conversation, 
+and that burst a beautiful bubble Norman had just blown.
+
+Damages were barely repaired when Eric entered the breakfast room 
+with a petulant sort of face and flung himself into a chair.  "My! 
+what a head I have on me this morning," he groaned.  "Soda water 
+would be worth all the coffee in the world, Mae; I'll take it 
+black, if you please.  How cosy you two look.  I always take too 
+much of every thing at a party, from flirtation to--  O, Mae, you 
+needn't look so sad.  I'm not the one in disgrace now.  Mrs. 
+Jerrold, Edith and Albert are just piping mad at you, and as for 
+Mann, here,--by the way," and Eric rubbed his forehead, as if 
+trying to sharpen up a still sleepy memory, "I suppose you two have 
+had it out by this time.  Norman sat up till ever so late to talk 
+you over with me, Mae.  Do thank him for me; I am under the 
+impression that I didn't do so last night."
+
+Mae tapped her fourth finger, on which a small ring glistened, 
+sharply against the cream jug.  "If I were every body's pet lamb or 
+black sheep, I couldn't have more shepherd's crooks about me.  Have 
+you joined the laudable band, Mr. Mann, and am I requested to thank 
+you for that?"
+
+"Not at all.  Perhaps your brother's remembrances of last night are 
+not very distinct.  I certainly sat up for Sismondi's sake, not for 
+yours."  And he really thought, for the moment, that he told the 
+truth.
+
+"I warn you," continued Mae, rising as she spoke, "that I have a 
+tremendous retinue of mentors, and nurses, and governesses already.  
+You had better content yourself with the fact that you have four 
+proper traveling companions, and bear the disgrace of being shocked 
+as best you may by one wild scrap of femininity who will have her 
+own way in spite of you all."  Mae half laughed, but she was 
+serious, and the boys both knew it.
+
+"You flatter me," replied Norman, "I had aspired to no such 
+position, but for your brother's sake, if not for your own, I 
+wished to tell Eric that the Roman air at midnight was dangerous to 
+your health.  I saw you had your window open."
+
+"Did you look through the ceiling, pray?" Mae retorted from the 
+door-way.  "Eric, ring if you want anything.  Rosetta is close at 
+hand."
+
+"I have put my foot in it this time," said Eric, clumsily.  "I am 
+real sorry, Norman, old boy."
+
+Norman did not feel like being pitied, and this remark of Eric's 
+roused him.  He fairly ground his teeth and clenched his hands, but 
+his big brown moustache and the tablecloth hid these outer 
+manifestations of anger.  "Don't be a goose, Ric," he said.  "What 
+possible difference can all this make to me?  Your sister is young 
+and quick."
+
+Now, it was Eric's turn to wince.  Was he giving this fellow the 
+impression that he thought his sister's opinions would affect him?  
+Horrible suspicion!  Boys always fancy everybody in love with their 
+sister.  He must cure that at once.  "Of course," he replied 
+quickly, "I know you and Mae never agree, that you barely stand 
+each other.  But I didn't know but you would prefer to be on good 
+terms with her, for all that."
+
+"Miss Mae can choose the terms on which we meet.  I shall be 
+content whatever her decision.  What are your plans for the day?"
+
+Lounging Eric straightened himself at once.  "I was a perfect fool 
+last night," he confessed.  "and I must rely on you, old fellow, to 
+help me out.  I made engagements for two weeks ahead with Miss 
+Hopkins and Miss Rae.  At any rate, I'm booked for the play to-
+night.  Now, I can't take two girls very well.  That is, I can, but 
+I thought you might like a show.  You may have your choice of the 
+two.  Miss Rae, by the way, says she's wild to know you; thought 
+you were the most provoking man she ever saw; and that you were--
+nonsensical idea--engaged to Mae.  All because you wouldn't look at 
+her the other day when she passed you two, But you can go with Miss 
+Hopkins, if you prefer."
+
+"Are they pretty?" asked Norman, apparently warming to the task, 
+"and bright?"
+
+"I should say they were.  Miss Hopkins has gorgeous great eyes,--
+but Miss Rae is more your style.  Still, you may have your choice."
+
+"Silly boy; you're afraid to death that I shall choose Miss 
+Hopkins.  Well, if they are not over stupid and flirtatious--"
+
+"Stupid!  Oh, no,"--Eric scouted that idea--"and flirtatious, 
+perhaps.  Miss Hopkins rolls her eyes a good deal, but then she has 
+a frankness, a winning way."
+
+"Well," laughed Norman, "you're such a transparent, susceptible 
+infant-in-arms that I'll go with you."
+
+"As shepherd," suggested Eric, "as long as Mae won't have you.  But 
+come, we must go down and call on these people.  It won't do at all 
+for you to appear suddenly this evening, and say, 'I'll relieve my 
+friend here of one of you.'"
+
+"Oh, what a bore.  Is that necessary?  Won't a card or a box of 
+Stillman's bon-bons do them?  Well, if it must be, come along, 
+then."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+It was evening, and the brilliantly lighted theatre was crowded to 
+overflowing.  Of course there were English who scowled at the 
+Americans, and Americans who smiled on every one and ate candy 
+while Othello writhed in jealous rage, and a scattering of Germans 
+with spectacles and a row of double-barrelled field glasses glued 
+over them, and Frenchmen with impudent eyes and elegant gloves, and 
+a general filling in of Italians, with the glitter here and there 
+of nobility, and still oftener of bright uniforms.  Finally there 
+was a modicum of true gentry, and these not of any particular 
+nation or class.  It is pleasant to name our party immediately 
+after referring to these goodly folks.  They had a fine box, and 
+although their ranks were thinned by the loss of two cavaliers, 
+nobody seemed to care.  Albert and Edith were perfectly happy side 
+by side, and Mrs. Jerrold was well contented to observe her 
+daughter's smile as Albert spoke to her, and the look of manly 
+protection in his eyes, as his gaze met Edith's.
+
+As for Mae, she had that delicious feminine pride which is as good 
+a stimulant as success to women--in emergencies.  And to-night was 
+an emergency to this small, excitable, young thing.  Her eyes were 
+very dark from the expansion of the pupil.  They possessed a rare 
+charm, caught from a trick the eyelids had of drooping slowly and 
+then suddenly and unexpectedly lifting to reveal the wide, bright 
+depths, that half-concealed, half-revealed power, which is so 
+tantalizing.  Mae was dressed in this same spirit to-night, and she 
+was dimly conscious of it.  The masses of tulle that floated from 
+her opera hat to her chin and down on her shoulders, revealed only 
+here and there a glimpse of rich brown hair, or of white throat.  
+Her cheeks were scarlet, her lips a-quiver with excitement and 
+pleasure.  She formed a pretty contrast to Edith, who sat by her 
+side.  Miss Jerrold leaned back in her chair quietly, composedly.  
+She fanned herself in long sweeps, looked pleased, contented, but 
+in no wise displaced or surprised--thoroughly well-bred and at 
+home.  She might have had a private rehearsal of Othello in her own 
+dramatic hall the evening before, from her air and mien.  Mae, on 
+the contrary, was alert, on the qui vive, as interested as a child 
+in each newcomer, and, after the curtain rose, in every tableau.
+
+Such a woman can not fail to attract attention, as long as she is 
+herself unconscious.  The world grows blase so speedily that it 
+enjoys all the more thoroughly the sight of freshness, verve, 
+life,--that is, the male portion of the world.  Women's great 
+desire, as a rule, is to appear entirely at ease, city-bred, high-
+bred, used to all things, surprised by none.
+
+So there were a great many glasses turned toward Mae that evening.  
+Very probably the young women in the next box accepted a share of 
+these glances as their own, and, in a crowd where the French and 
+Italian elements predominate, or largely enter, they could not have 
+been far wrong.  Every girl or woman who pretends to any possible 
+charm is quite sure of her share of admiration from these 
+susceptible beings.  The young ladies of the next box had that 
+indescribable New York air, which extends from the carefully 
+brushed eyebrows quite to the curves of the wrist and hand.  Praise 
+Parisian modes all you will, but for genuine style, a New York 
+girl, softened a trifle by commonsense or good taste, leads the 
+world--certainly if she is abroad.  For there she soon finds it 
+impossible to go to the extremes that American air seems to rush 
+her into.  Three months, or perhaps, if she is observant, three 
+days in Paris, teach her that the very biggest buttons, or the very 
+largest paniers, or the very flaringest hats are not for her, or 
+any lady, and by stepping back to size number two, she does not 
+detract from her style, while she does add to her lady-likeness.
+
+These two girls, it may be surmised, were no other than Miss 
+Hopkins and Miss Rae, whom chance or fate or bungling Eric Madden, 
+who bought the tickets, had seated side by side with the Maddens 
+and Jerrolds.  It was bothersome, when Norman and Eric had played 
+truant at any rate, but there was no help for it; so after a little 
+Eric introduced them all round, and the two parties apparently 
+merged into one, or broke up into four, for tete-a-tetes soon 
+began.  It was a little hard that three girls should have each a 
+devoted servant, and that only one, and that one, Mae, should be 
+obliged to receive her care from the chaperon; but so it was.
+
+Nevertheless, Mae bore herself proudly.  She was seated next Miss 
+Rae, separated only by the nominal barrier of a little railing, 
+while just beyond sat Norman, his chair turned toward the two 
+girls.  The stranger insisted on drawing Mae into the conversation, 
+partly for curiosity's sake, to watch her odd face and manners, 
+partly from that genuine generosity that comes to the most selfish 
+of women, when she is satisfied with her position.  It is pleasant 
+to pity, to be generous; and Miss Rae, having the man, could afford 
+to share him now and then, when it pleased her, with the lonely 
+girl by her side.  But Miss Rae's tactics did not work.  Mae 
+replied pleasantly when addressed, but returned speedily and 
+eagerly to Mrs. Jerrold or a survey of the house, with the frank 
+happiness of a child.  She was all the more fascinating to the 
+admiring eyes that watched her, because she sat alone, electrified 
+by the inspiration and magnetism from within, and did not need the 
+stimulus of another voice close by her side, breathing compliments 
+and flattery, to brighten her eyes and call the blushes to her 
+cheeks.  Norman Mann saw the eyes fixed on her, and they vexed him.  
+At the same time, he liked her the better on that very account.
+
+And at last the curtain rose.
+
+It was just as Desdemona assures her father of her love for 
+Othello, that Mae became conscious of a riveted gaze--of a 
+presence.  Lifting her eyes, and widening them, she looked over to 
+the opposite side of the house, and there, of course, was the 
+Piedmontese officer again, handsomer, more brilliant than ever, 
+with a grateful, soft look of recognition in his eyes.
+
+Mae was out of harmony with all her friends.  She was proud and 
+lonely.  The man's pleased, softened look touched her heart 
+strangely.  There was almost a choke in her throat, there were 
+almost tears in her eyes, and there was a free, glad, welcoming 
+smile on her lips.
+
+Norman Mann saw it and followed it, and caught the officer 
+receiving it, and thought "She's a wild coquette."
+
+And Mae knew what he saw and what he thought.
+
+Then a strange spirit entered the girl.  Here was a man who vexed 
+her, who piqued her, and who was rude, for Mae secretly thought it 
+was rude to neglect Mrs. Jerrold, as the boys did that evening, and 
+yet who was vexed and piqued in his turn, if she did what he didn't 
+like and looked at another man.
+
+And then here was the other man.  Mae looked down at him.
+
+Bless us! who is to blame a young woman for forgetting everything 
+but the "other man" when he is a godlike Piedmontese officer, with 
+strong soft cheek and throat, and Italian eyes, and yellow 
+moustaches, and spurs and buttons that click and shine in a 
+maddening sort of way?
+
+Of course, in reality, everybody is to blame her, we among the very 
+virtuous first.  In this particular case, however, we have facts, 
+not morals, to deal with.  Mae did see Norman Mann talking 
+delightedly to a pretty girl, and she did see the officer gazing at 
+her rapturously, and she quite forgot Othello, and gave back look 
+for look, only more shy and less intense perhaps, and knew that 
+Norman Mann was very angry and she and the officer very happy.  
+What matter though the one should hate her, and the other love her, 
+and she--
+
+But, bother all things but the delirious present moment.  Never 
+fear consequences.  There were bright lights, and brilliant people, 
+the hum of many voices, the flash of many eyes, and a half secret 
+between her, this little creature up in the box, and the very 
+handsomest man of them all.
+
+So while Othello fell about the stage, and ground out tremendous 
+curses, Mae half shivered and glanced tremblingly toward Bero, and 
+Bero gazed back protectingly and grandly.  Once, when Desdemona 
+cried out thrillingly, "Othello, il mio marito," Mae looked at 
+Norman involuntarily and caught a half flash of his eye, but he 
+turned back quickly to his companion and Mae's glance wandered on 
+to Bero and rested there as the wild voice cried out again, "il mio 
+marito, il mio marito."
+
+So the evening slid on.  Mae smiled and smiled and opened and half 
+closed her eyes, and Norman invited Miss Rae to go to church with 
+him, and to drive with him, and to walk with him, and to go to the 
+galleries with him, "until, Susie Hopkins, if you will believe it, 
+I fairly thought he would drop on his knees and ask me to go 
+through life with him, right then and there."  So Miss Rae confided 
+to Susie Hopkins after the victorious night, in the silence of a 
+fourth-story Costanzi bedroom.
+
+Susie Hopkins was putting her hair up on crimping-pins, but she 
+paused long enough to say:  "Well, Jack Durkee had better hurry 
+himself and his ring along, then."
+
+"O, he's coming as quickly as ever he can," laughed Miss Rae, 
+whereat she proceeded to place a large letter and a picture under 
+the left-hand pillow, crimped her hair, cold-creamed her lips, and 
+laid her down to pleasant dreams of--Jack.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Mae was very much ashamed of herself the next morning.  She had 
+been restored in a measure to popular favor, through Eric, the day 
+before.  Edith and Albert were home from Frascati, when Eric made 
+his raid bravely on their forces combined with those of Mrs. 
+Jerrold.  He advanced boldly.  "It's all nonsense, child, as she 
+is," he said.  "It was natural enough, to talk with the man," for 
+Mae had made a clean breast of her misdoings to him, to the extent 
+of saying that they had chatted after the beggar left.  "Do forgive 
+her, poor little proud tot, away across the sea from her mother.  
+Albert, you're as hard as a rock, and that Edith has no spirit in 
+her," he added, under his breath.  This remark made Albert white 
+with rage.  Nevertheless, he put in a plea for his wayward, 
+reckless little sister, with effect.  After a few more remarks from 
+Mrs. Jerrold, Mae came out of the ordeal; was treated naturally, 
+and, as we have seen, accompanied Mrs. Jerrold to the play the 
+night before.
+
+Now, it was the next day.  Mrs. Jerrold breakfasted in her own room 
+again, and spent the hours in writing home letters full of the 
+Peter and Paul reminiscences and quotations.  Norman and Eric left 
+for the Costanzi, and Albert and Edith, armed with books, and note-
+books, and the small camp-stools, again started away together.  
+This last 'again' was getting to be accepted quite as a matter of 
+course.  Everybody knew what it meant.  They always invited the 
+rest of the company to go with them, and were especially urgent, 
+this morning, that Mae should accompany them.
+
+"Why, with mamma in her room you will be lonely," suggested Edith, 
+"and you can't go out by yourself."
+
+Mae winced inwardly at this, but replied pleasantly: "I have 
+letters to write also, and I'm not in the mood to-day for pictures, 
+and the cold, chilling galleries filled with the damp breath of the 
+ages."
+
+So Edith and Albert, nothing loth, having discharged their duty, 
+started off.  These two have as yet appeared only in the 
+background, and may have assumed a half-priggish air in opposition 
+and contrast to Mae.  They really, however, were very interesting 
+young people.  Albert with a strong desire in his heart--or was it 
+in his head?--to aid the world, and Edith with a clear self-
+possession and New England shrewdness that helped and pleased him.  
+Their travels were enriching them both.  Edith was trying to draw 
+the soul from all the great pictures and some of the lesser ones, 
+and Albert was waking, through her influence, to the world of art.  
+This morning they were on their way to the Transfiguration to study 
+the scornful sister.  They were taking the picture bit by bit, 
+color by color, face by face.  There are advantages in this 
+analytical study, yet there is a chance of losing the spirit of the 
+whole.  So Mae thought and said: "I know that sister now, Edith, 
+better than you ever will."  This was while she was looping up her 
+friend's dress here, and pulling out a fold there, in that 
+destructive way girls have of beautifying each other.  "See here!"
+
+And down sank Miss Mae on her knees, with her lips curved, and her 
+hands stretched out imploringly, half-mockingly.  No need of words 
+to say:  "Save my brother, behold him.  Ah, you cannot do it, your 
+power is boast.  Yet, save him, pray."
+
+"A little more yellow in my hair, some pearls and a pink gown, and 
+you might have the sister to study in a living model, Edith," 
+laughed Mae, arising.
+
+Edith and Albert were both struck by Mae's dramatic force, and they 
+talked of her as they drove to the Vatican.  "I wish I understood 
+her better," said Edith.  "I cannot feel as if travel were doing 
+her good.  She is changing so; she was always odd, but then she was 
+always happy.  Now she has her moods, and there is a look in her 
+eye I am afraid of.  It is almost savage.  You would think the 
+beauty in Rome would delight her nature, for she craves beauty and 
+poetry in everything.  I don't believe the theatre is good for her.  
+Albert, suppose we give up our tickets for Thursday night."
+
+"But you want particularly to see that play, Edith."
+
+"I can easily give it up for Mae's sake.  It would be cruel to go 
+without her, and I think excitement is bad for her."
+
+"You are very generous, Edith, and right, too, I dare say.  I wish 
+my little sister could see pleasure and duty through your steadier, 
+clearer eyes."
+
+Then the steady, clear eyes dropped suddenly, and the two forgot 
+all about Mae, and rolled contentedly off, behind the limping 
+Italian horse.  And the red-cheeked vetturino with the flower in 
+his button-hole, whistled a love-song, and thought of his Piametta, 
+I suppose.
+
+Meantime, Mae, left to herself, grew penitent and reckless by 
+turns, blushed alternately with shame and with quick pulse-beats, 
+as she remembered Norman Mann's face, or the officer's smile.  She 
+wondered where he lived, and whether she would see him soon again.  
+Poor child!  She was really innocent, and only dimly surmised how 
+he would haunt her hereafter.  Would he look well in citizen's 
+clothes?  How would Norman Mann seem in his uniform?  She wished 
+she had a jacket cut like his.  And so on in an indolent way.  But 
+penitence was getting the better of her, and after vainly trying to 
+read or write, she settled herself down for a cry.  To think that 
+she, Mae Madden, could have acted so absurdly.  She never would 
+forgive herself, never.  Then she cried some more, a good deal 
+more.
+
+About four in the afternoon a very bright sunbeam peeped through 
+her closed blinds, and she brushed away her tears, and peace came 
+back to her small heart, and she felt like a New England valley 
+after a shower, very fresh and clean, and goodly,--just a trifle 
+subdued, however.
+
+She would go to church.  She had heard that there was lovely music 
+at vespers, in the little church at the foot of Capo le Case.  St. 
+Andrea delle Frate, was it?  It wasn't very far away.  She could 
+say her prayers and repent entirely and wholly.  So she dressed 
+rapidly, singing the familiar old Te Deum joyously all the while, 
+and off she started.
+
+The air was cool and clear and delicious and the street-scenes were 
+pretty.  Mae took in everything before her as she left the house, 
+from the Barberini fountain to the groups of models at the corner 
+of the Square and the Via Felice; but she did not see, at some 
+distance behind her, on the opposite side of the street, the sudden 
+start of a motionless figure as she left the house, or know that it 
+straightened itself and moved along as she did, turning on to the 
+pretty Via Sistina, so down the hill at Capo le Case, to the church 
+below.
+
+She was early for vespers, and there was only the music singing in 
+her own happy little heart as she entered the quiet place.  The 
+contrast between the spot, with its shrines and symbols and aids to 
+faith, and all that she had associated with religion, conspired to 
+separate her from herself and her past, and left her a bit of 
+breathing, worshiping life, praising the great Giver of Life.  She 
+fell on her knees in an exalted, jubilate spirit.  She was more 
+like a Praise-the-Lord psalm of David than like a young girl of the 
+nineteenth century.
+
+And yet close behind her, a little to the left, was Bero on his 
+knees too, at his pater nosters.
+
+By and by the music began.  It was music beyond description; those 
+wonderful male voices, the chorus of young boys, and then suddenly, 
+the organ and some one wild falsetto carrying the great Latin soul-
+laden words up higher.
+
+All this while Mae's head was bent low and her heart was a-praying.
+
+All this while Bero was on his knees also, but his eyes were on 
+Mae.
+
+The music ceased; the prayers were ended.  Mae heard indistinctly 
+the sweep of trailing skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble 
+floor, the noise of voices as the people went away, but still she 
+did not move.  The selah pause had come after the psalm.
+
+When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, her eyes fell on the 
+kneeling form.  She tried to pass quickly without recognition, but 
+he reached out his hand.
+
+"This is a church," said Mae; "my prayers are sacred; do not 
+disturb me."
+
+He held his rosary toward her, with the cross at the end tightly 
+clasped in his hand.  "My prayers are here, too," he said.  "Oh, 
+Signorina, give me one little prayer, one of your little prayers."
+
+He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half light, his hands 
+clasped, and an intense earnestness in his easily moved Italian 
+soul, that floated up to his face.  It looked like beautiful 
+penitence and faith to Mae.  Here was a soul in sympathy with hers, 
+one which met her harmoniously in every mood, slid into her dreams 
+and wild wishes, sparkled with her enjoyment, and now knelt as she 
+knelt, and asked for one of her prayers.
+
+She stood a minute irresolute.  Then she smiled down on him a full, 
+rich smile, and said in English: "God bless you,"  The next moment 
+she was gone.
+
+Bero made no movement to follow her, but remained quietly on his 
+knees, his head bowed low.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I looked in at St. Andrea's, at vespers," said that dear, bungling 
+fellow, Eric, at dinner that night, "and saw you Mae, but you were 
+so busy with your prayers I came away."  There was a pause, and Mae 
+knew that people looked at her.
+
+"Yes, I was there; the music was wonderful."
+
+"Mae," asked Mrs.  Jerrold, "Do you have to go to a Roman Catholic 
+Church to say your prayers?"  For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the 
+Puritans, and had breathed in the shorter catechism and the 
+doctrine of election with the mountain air and sea-salt of her 
+childhood.  Possibly the two former had had as much to do as the 
+latter with her angularity and severe strength.
+
+"Indeed," cried Mae, impulsively, "I wish I could always enter a 
+church to say my prayers.  There is so much to help one there."
+
+"Is there any danger of your becoming a Romanist?" enquired Mrs. 
+Jerrold, pushing the matter further.
+
+"I wish there were a chance of my becoming anything half as good, 
+but I am afraid there isn't.  Still, I turn with an occasional 
+loyal heart-beat to the great Mother Church, that the rest of you 
+have all run away from."  "Yes, you have," Mae shook her head 
+decidedly at Edith.  "She may be a cruel mother.  I know you all 
+think she's like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and that she 
+whips her children and sends them supperless to bed, and gives them 
+a stone for bread, but she's the mother of all of us, 
+notwithstanding."
+
+"What a dreadful mixture of Mother Goose and Holy Bible," exclaimed 
+Eric, laughingly, while Mae cooled off, and Mrs. Jerrold stared 
+amazedly, wondering how to take this tirade.  She concluded at last 
+that it would be better to let it pass as one of Mae's 
+extravagances, so she ended the conversation by saying: "I hope, 
+Eric, you will wait for your sister, if you see her alone, at 
+church.  It is not the thing for her to go by herself."
+
+"No," added Albert, "we shall have to buy a chain for you soon."
+
+"If you do," said Mae quietly, "I'll slip it."  And not another 
+prayer did she say that night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+It was the first day of Carnival.  The determination to enjoy 
+herself was so strong in Mae, that her face fairly shone with her 
+"good time coming."  She popped her head out of the doorway, and 
+flung a big handful of confetti right at Eric, but he dodged, and 
+Norman Mann caught it in his face.  Then, seeing a try-to-be-
+dignified look creeping upon Mae, he seized the golden moment, 
+gathered up such remnants of confetti as were tangled in his hair 
+and whiskers, and flung them back again, shouting: "Long live King 
+Pasquino!  So his reign has begun, has it?"
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mae Madden, by Mary Murdoch Mason
+
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