confession. Bedtime came round at last, and Reginald had made no sign. The dread of seeing him gave place to fear lest he might not appear to-morrow.

Late the following afternoon, while Frossie and Mr. Goodchild were out walking, Thallie intrusted to the little. door-porter, Domenico, a note:

Come and forgive me for the words I did n't mean.

Domenico brushed his boots anew, polished the tiny brass keys on the collar of his gray frock-coat, saw to it that his linen was quite clean,- for the door-porter of the Pension Schwandorf ought to look his best before the porter of the big Hotel Alexandra,—then he trotted away toward the Arno, delicately holding between two fingers the missive of the carina, the simpatica, the adorabile Signorina Thallie. And presently he trotted back, into the house, up-stairs to the dear Signorina Thallie's bedroom door, which she, having seen him cross the street, was holding open. But the note that he presented was her own!

"He is not there, Signorina. He departed yesterday with all his baggages. He is entirely gone away, to Sicily, or something like that."

Closing the door, staring and openmouthed, she leaned her weight against the panels, as if trying to keep out this

news.

"No! no! it's impossible! It's too hideous to be true!"

Frossie, returning, found her in hysterics and learned the truth. And that same night Frossie, almost as much shaken as if this catastrophe had been her own, was forced to tell Mr. Goodchild that Reginald and Thallie, after a misunderstanding, had parted perhaps forever.

In the days that followed, Thallie, without the wish to live or the energy to die, said many a time to herself and to her sister, "He has broken my heart." But as time passed, she found that one may survive even such an injury, though the broken heart that has been healed does not for a long while absorb its scars.

However, her convalescence was not slow, considering that before it was completed she seemed to have been made over into another person. Her intellect, formerly restricted by the optimism of good health, saw the whole spread of life. in a new light when her vitality was lowered by despair. She came to know the pessimism of youth whose vigor has been exhausted by its tragedies, an immature cynicism than which there is none more bitter, more greedy for confirmation of its melancholy fancies. Listless on her longchair covered with monkeys and pomegranates, beside the warm stove of yellow porcelain, she read again the novelists. whose dreary views had once repelled her. But now, at some passage meant to show the cruelty and worthlessness of life, she felt a pang of pain and satisfaction mingled, as who should say, "That is true; I have found existence like that." Or else: "All these vows of love, what irony! In the last chapter we shall see that they were lies; otherwise this writer does n't deserve his reputation."

When she began to go about again, one now and then surprised on her face the look that she might wear at forty. For her beauty was altered, too, like a garden of roses the details of which, hitherto lost in sunshine, grow cold and clear beneath the first gray sky of autumn.

She now preferred to take her walks alone. In those dismal days of March she revisited the spots where he and she had laughed together, at each return aware of a twinge in which misery was fraught with the strange pleasure of a martyr. She contemplated such places with the melancholy of one who reviews the regions where he was happy in his childhood. And somehow, whenever she had refreshed her memory in those surroundings, she could think of Reginald more kindly, as if he who had laughed with her there was a different person from the Reginald who had run away. Perhaps that was why she kept returning to those scenes.

At nightfall she regained the pension, enervated by her thoughts and the Italian winds, pale, with deep shadows beneath

confession. Bedtime came round at last, and Reginald had made no sign. The dread of seeing him gave place to fear lest he might not appear to-morrow.

Late the following afternoon, while Frossie and Mr. Goodchild were out walking, Thallie intrusted to the little door-porter, Domenico, a note:

Come and forgive me for the words I did n't mean.

Domenico brushed his boots anew, polished the tiny brass keys on the collar of his gray frock-coat, saw to it that his linen was quite clean, -for the door-porter of the Pension Schwandorf ought to look his best before the porter of the big Hotel Alexandra, then he trotted away toward the Arno, delicately holding between two fingers the missive of the carina, the simpatica, the adorabile Signorina Thallie. And presently he trotted back, into the house, up-stairs to the dear Signorina Thallie's bedroom door, which she, having seen him cross the street, was holding open. But the note that he presented was her own!

"He is not there, Signorina. He departed yesterday with all his baggages. He is entirely gone away, to Sicily, or something like that."

Closing the door, staring and openmouthed, she leaned her weight against the panels, as if trying to keep out this

news.

"No! no! it's impossible! It's too hideous to be true!"

Frossie, returning, found her in hysterics and learned the truth. And that same night Frossie, almost as much shaken as if this catastrophe had been her own, was forced to tell Mr. Goodchild that Reginald and Thallie, after a misunderstanding, had parted perhaps forever.

In the days that followed, Thallie, without the wish to live or the energy to die, said many a time to herself and to her sister, "He has broken my heart." But as time passed, she found that one may survive even such an injury, though the broken heart that has been healed does not for a long while absorb its scars.

However, her convalescence was not slow, considering that before it was completed she seemed to have been made over into another person. Her intellect, formerly restricted by the optimism of good health, saw the whole spread of life in a new light when her vitality was lowered by despair. She came to know the pessimism of youth whose vigor has been exhausted by its tragedies, an immature cynicism than which there is none more bitter, more greedy for confirmation of its melancholy fancies. Listless on her longchair covered with monkeys and pomegranates, beside the warm stove of yellow porcelain, she read again the novelists whose dreary views had once repelled her. But now, at some passage meant to show the cruelty and worthlessness of life, she felt a pang of pain and satisfaction mingled, as who should say, "That is true; I have found existence like that." Or else: "All these vows of love, what irony! In the last chapter we shall see that they were lies; otherwise this writer does n't deserve his reputation."

When she began to go about again, one now and then surprised on her face the look that she might wear at forty. For her beauty was altered, too, like a garden of roses the details of which, hitherto lost in sunshine, grow cold and clear beneath the first gray sky of autumn.

She now preferred to take her walks alone. In those dismal days of March she revisited the spots where he and she had laughed together, at each return aware of a twinge in which misery was fraught with the strange pleasure of a martyr. She contemplated such places with the melancholy of one who reviews the regions where he was happy in his childhood. And somehow, whenever she had refreshed her memory in those surroundings, she could think of Reginald more kindly, as if he who had laughed with her there was a different person from the Reginald who had run away. Perhaps that was why she kept returning to those scenes.

At nightfall she regained the pension, enervated by her thoughts and the Italian winds, pale, with deep shadows beneath