on the piano at each side of the music-rest enkindled glossy high lights on the nosebump and forehead bosses of Signor Ceccherelli, who at Mrs. Hawthorne's appearance sprang up to salute. She reached him her hand, over which he deeply bowed.

"You 're to play all those lovely things I'm so fond of," she directed him. ""The Swallow and the Prisoner,' 'The Butterflies,' 'The Cascade of Pearls.' And don't forget the 'Souvenir of Saint Helena.' Then the one of the soldiers marching off and the soldiers coming home again. All our favorites. Mr. Fane-are you acquainted with each other? Italo-you'll have to tell him your name yourself. All I can think of is Checkerberry."

"Yes, yes, we are acquainted," said Gerald, hurriedly. "We have seen each other many times. Come sta?"

"Oh, he can speak English."

"A leetle." Ceccherelli modestly admitted.

"He understands everything I say. We have great conversations. He comes every evening when he is n't engaged to play somewhere else."

She went to sit on the gorgeous brocade sofa, arranging herself amid the multitude of cushions so as to listen long and happily. Estelle preferring a straight-backed chair, Gerald took the other corner of Aurora's sofa. Immediately Ceccherelli opened with "Souvenir de Sainte-Hélène." Aurora, respectful to the artist, talked in a whisper.

"He's so talented! You simply could n't count the pieces he can play. We do enjoy it so! We have n't anything in particular to do evenings if no one calls. We don't often go out. We have n't been here long enough to know many people. And aside from his magnificent playing, the little man is such good company! We do have fun! There, I must n't talk. I'm keeping you from listening."

Gerald settled back, too, as if to listen, but to do the contrary was his fixed purpose, even though the pianist, at last appreciated, put into his playing much feeling and force. Gerald's eyes went wan

The music was describing a hero's death-bed, besieged by dreams of battle, at moments so noisy that Gerald had to open his eyes again for a look of curiosity at the person who could produce so much sound. As he watched him and his nose, which was like the magnified beak of a hen,—the nose of a man who loves to talk, -he tried a little to imagine those merry evenings spoken of by Aurora. The fellow looked almost ludicrously solemn at this moment. He took himself and his art right seriously, there could be no doubt of it. His face was a map of the emotions expressed by the music, and wore, besides, according to his conception of the part, the look of a great man unacclaimed by his own generation.

Dio! what an ugly little man!
Gerald closed his eyes again.

He was dimly troubled, knowing that there is no hope of an Italian ever really understanding the ways of being and doing of American women, and especially an Italian of that class. But then it would be equally difficult to make this American woman understand just how the Italian might misunderstand her.

He permitted himself a direct look at her, where she rested among the cushions, with eyes closed again and a smile diffused all over her face; her whole person, indeed, permeated with the essence of a smile. Extraordinary that, loving music so much, one could so much love such music.

She surprised him by opening her eyes and whispering:

"Don't you want to smoke?" showing that for a moment at least she had not been thinking of music. “You can, if you want to. Here, we 've got some. Don't go and think, now, that Estelle and I have taken to smoking. Heavens above! We sent out for them the other night when Charlie Hunt was here."

She reached across the table near her and handed him a box of cigarettes.

He was very glad to light one. Το smoke is soothing, and he felt the need of it. Added to his vague distress at the spectacle of such familiarity from these ladies to that impossible little Italian, a ferment of resentment was disquieting him apropos of Hunt-those works of art of which Hunt had facilitated the purchase.

Hunt, of a truth, ever since the first mention of him that evening had been like a fishbone in Gerald's throat.

He checked his thoughts, recognizing that it is not sane or safe to permit oneself to interpret the conduct of a person whom one does not like. The chances of being misled are too great. He uprooted a suspicion dishonoring to both.

Let it be taken for assured, then, that Hunt had in this case no interest to forward beyond his love for making himself important. After all, if the ladies liked bad pictures! Yet it was a shame that he should frequent their house, be accepted as their friend, invited by them, made much of in their innocent and generous way, then should make fun of them, as Gerald felt that Hunt was doing.

Singularly, when next the music stopped, Mrs. Hawthorne, after she with true politeness had taken the box of cigarettes to the other of her guests, spoke of Hunt. Perhaps her thoughts, too, had gone straying, and mysteriously encountered some straying thought of his.

"Charlie Hunt," she said, "is coming on Sunday morning to take us to the picture-galleries. We're going to play hooky from church. His work, don't you see, keeps him at the bank on week-days till everything of that sort is closed."

"Mrs. Hawthorne," cried Gerald, and sat up in unaffected indignation, while mustache, beard, hair, everything about him appeared to bristle, "I thought I had been engaged to take you sight-seeing! I thought it was to be my honor and privilege! Mrs. Hawthorne, my dear friend, if you do not wish deeply to hurt me, deeply to hurt me, you will write to Mr. Hunt at once, this evening, and I will post the let

ter, that you have thought better of that immoral plan for Sunday morning, and are going to church like a good Christian woman. And to-morrow, Mrs. Hawthorne, at whatever time will be convenient for you, I will come and take you to the Uffizi."

CHAPTER VI

LENDING her spacious front room for the Christmas bazaar in aid of the church, and beholding it full of bustle and brightness, was the thing that brought to the acute stage Mrs. Hawthorne's longing to see her whole house the scene of some huge good time: she sent out innumerable invitations to a ball. Mrs. Foss's card was inclosed with hers. It was a farewell party given for Brenda, whose day of sailing was very near. The frequent inquiry how Brenda should be crossing the ocean so late in the year met with the answer that her traveling companions had a brother whose wedding had been timed thus awkwardly for them.

On the morning of the day before the ball Gerald came to see Mrs. Hawthorne. He was still intrusting the servant with his message when Aurora, leaning over the railing of the hallway above, called down to him, "Come right up-stairs!"

He was aware of unusual activities all around-workmen, the sound of hammering, housemaids plying brooms and brushes. Leslie Foss, with her hat on, looked from the dining-room and said, "Hello, Gerald!" too busy for anything more. Fräulein seemed to be with her, helping at something.

The great central white-and-gold door, to-day open, permitted a glimpse, as he started up the stairs, of a man on a stepladder fitting tall wax-candles into one of the great chandeliers. From unseen quarters floated Estelle's voice, saying, "Ploo bah! Nong, ploo hoe!"

Mrs. Hawthorne met him at the head of the stairs. The slight disorder of her hair, usually so tidy, pointed to unusual exertions on her part, also. Her face was flushed with excitement and, to judge by her wreathing smiles, with happiness.

"I saw you coming," she greeted him. "Riverisco! Beata Lei! Mamma mia! And do you know how I saw you? Come here."

She led the way to the back, where the window-door stood open on to the roof of the portico, which formed a terrace.

"See? I've had it glassed in for tomorrow night. We could n't say we had n't plenty of rooms before, and plenty of room in them. That 's just the trouble: there are n't any nooks in this big, square house. So I've made one. This is Flirtation Alcove."

"You are very busy, I am afraid, Mrs. Hawthorne. I ought not to take your time."

"Can't you sit down a minute?"
"I have come to ask a favor."

"I guess I can say it's granted even before you ask."

"I should like to retract my refusal of your very kind invitation for to-morrow evening. I have explained to you my weak avoidance of crowds. I have determined to overcome it in this case, and I want your permission to bring a friend with me."

"That? How can you ask? Bring ten! Bring twenty! Bring as many as you 've got! As for coming yourself, I 'm tickled to death that you 've reconsidered."

"It's not quite as simple as it seems, Mrs. Hawthorne. I shall have to tell you more."

At her indication, he took the other half of the little dumpling sofa which had seemed to her an appropriate piece of furniture for Flirtation Alcove, and which, with a rug on the floor, formed so far its only decoration. In the clear, bare morning light of outdoors, which bathed them, she still looked triumphantly fresh, but he looked tired.

"It is Lieutenant Giglioli for whom I have come to beg an invitation. You perhaps know whom I mean." "Let me see. I can't tell. Quite a few officers have been introduced, but I never can get their names."

"Has n't Mrs. Foss or Leslie ever spoken of him?"

"Not so far as I can remember. In what way do you mean?"

"They evidently have not." He seemed to be given pause by this and need to gather force from reflection before going on, as he did after a moment, overcoming his repugnance. "He is the reason for poor Brenda being packed off to America.” "Oh, is that it?"

"He came to see me last evening and spent most of the night talking of her. We were barely acquainted before; but he knew I am a close friend of the Fosses, and in that necessity to ease their hearts with talk which Italians seem to feel he chose me. I felt sorry for him." "She's turned him down?" "No; she loves him."

Again Gerald stopped, as after making a communication of great gravity. Mrs. Hawthorne, listening with breathless interest, made no sound that urged him to

go on.

"But he has nothing beside his officer's pay," Gerald went on when the surprise of his revelation had been allowed time to pass, "and she on her side has nothing but what her parents might give her, who, you probably know, have no great abundance. His proposals were made to them, as is the custom in this country, and have been formally declined."

"They are both too poor. I see," said Mrs. Hawthorne; but added quickly, as if she had not really seen, "It seems sort of funny, though, does n't it, to let that keep them, if they 're fond of each other?"

"Oh, it's not that. However fond, they could n't marry without her bringing her husband a fixed portion. It is the law in this country, in the case of officers of the army, to keep up the dignity of that impressive body, you understand. In the case of a lieutenant the dote, or dowry, must be forty thousand francs. I learned the exact sum for the first time last night."

"How much is that? Let me see,Mrs. Hawthorne did mental arithmetic rather quickly for a woman,-"eight thousand dollars. And the Fosses can't give it."

"Of their ability to give it if they

wished to I am no judge. But they are not convinced that the sacrifice ought to be made." He frowned at the pattern on the rug, and suddenly cut at it impatiently with his stick. "It is a singular story, in which everybody is right and the result wrong, horribly wrong!"

"Oh, dear me!" sighed Mrs. Hawthorne, feeling with him even before understanding.

"I ought perhaps to say," he corrected, "everybody is good and well-meaning, but has been unwise. And everybody now has to pay."

"I've thought right along that the Fosses had some reason for not being very happy," said Mrs. Hawthorne, "and I guessed it was something about Brenda. But they never said anything, and I did n't try to make out. Brenda does n't take to me, somehow, as the others do. I'm not her kind, of course; but I do adore her from afar. She's so beautiful! She's like a person in a story-book, who at the end dies, looking at the sunset over the sea, or else marries the prince."

"Yes, Brenda is wonderful."

"I never should take her for an American."

"She's not like one, and yet she is. She has grown up in this country and breathed in its ideas and feelings till she even looks Italian. Her parents are the sort of Americans that fifty years of foreign countries would n't budge; but they began later. Still, it is because Brenda is American, after all, that cruelties are being committed. Her family have taken it for granted that one of them could n't really be in love with an Italian, least of all that joke, a dapper and decorative Italian officer that a girl buys at a fixed price for her husband. And Brenda can't say to them: 'But I am. I am in love with just such a man. The happiness of my life depends upon your finding the vulgar sum of money with which to buy him for me.' Because of the American-ness all round, Brenda can't say that to them, and because she does n't say it, they are in doubt, they only half apprehend, they don't understand. The one thing they are

sure of is that to marry a foreigner is a mistake. And the one safe thing they see to do, when Brenda's face, combined with her entire reserve toward them, has begun to torment them seriously, is to send her away, where, if the truth be that she mysteriously is 'interested in' an Italian, the change of scene may help to put him out of her head."

"So that's why they 're sending her home!"

"There are no better or dearer people in the world, kind, true, just; but-" Gerald held in, and showed how much he hated to make any sort of reservation"in this they have been to blame. They bring growing girls to Italy, where, such is their confidence in I don't know what quality supposed to be inherent and to produce immunity from love of Italian men, they never dream that there may happen to them an Italian son-in-law."

He gave her a moment to realize how rash this was; then hurried, as if wishing to get through as quickly as possible with the disagreeable, if not disgraceful, task of criticizing his friends and of gossiping:

"During the progress of the affair Mrs. Foss lets all go on as the little affairs and flirtations of her own youth were allowed to go on at home. She likes her daughters to be admired. With Mrs. Foss's knowledge, Brenda, during a whole summer at the seaside, receives Giglioli's letters, written at first, or partly, in English, which he is learning with her help. With this excuse of English, it is a correspondence and courtship dans toutes les règles. Brenda is not asked by an American mother to show her letters or his. Giglioli, with his traditions, could not have imagined such a thing if the parents were unwilling to reIceive him as a suitor. Brenda herselfone will never know about Brenda, how it began, what she thought or hoped. She is very young; no doubt she did hope. Children seldom know much about their parents' means. She very likely thought hers could make her the present of a dowry, as they had made her other presents. But when she discovered their attitude toward the whole matter, with dig