her eyes, her rich-hued tresses showing a diminished luster. But next morning, moved by a nervous restlessness, she set out again to hug her anguishes and appre-. hensions in the solitude of crowds, to sweep the picture-galleries with an unseeing gaze, to sit brooding in empty churches, to lean over the parapet of a bridge, watch the swift current, and reflect with a shudder in which two fears were blended, "It might even come to that?" But presently she was able to stop thinking of the river.

Yet she felt that to go on living it was necessary to find some anodyne for life. She remembered her old dreams of art, put up her easel, for hours sat staring at an empty canvas. Finding the very thought of legitimate, sound work too great a tax upon her brain, she wondered if she could not resume her painting with pictures in the Post-Impressionistic style? But her mind was unable to direct her "even to the execution of a Post-Impressionist picture." All her talents seemed to have evaporated with her happiness; her hopes of artistic fame were shattered, like her confidence in love.

So she resumed her listless wandering about the city, weighed down the more by inability to divert her mind with work.

Sometimes, while returning to the pension in the dusk, she was overtaken by John Holland.

Nowadays, if joined by another man, she would have walked faster in order to be rid of him the sooner. But with "Mr. Holland" she felt, instead of repugnance and suspicion, an instinctive respect, a confidence peculiarly soothing to her overwrought nerves.

He failed to ask her why she looked so blue; he did not seem to notice anything extraordinary in her new behavior; he refrained from objecting to her involuntary pessimistic comments. Yet when their walk was ended, she felt for the moment less despondent, and at the pension door said good-by almost with regret. For there are personalities which so generously irradiate strength and calmness that words are scarcely necessary for the

relief of distracted souls with whom they come in contact.

As for Aurelius, Florence exhaled round. him a magical, sweet soporific. Something within him that had always longed for nearness to the well-springs of romance and beauty was satisfied at last, and even the vision of Rome was veiled by the mistlike, golden softness of this Tuscan air. "Later," he told himself, when that vision had shown itself most clearly-"later, when I have assimilated and translated into words what Florence is trying to tell me." And at the writing-table in his bedroom overlooking the garden of the Pension Schwandorf he sat with pen in hand, his spirit hovering between the indolent present and the dynamically active past, his breast expanded by an inspiration too splendid to be reduced to black and white. Some afternoons he was forced to tear up all his day's scribblings, so inadequately did they express the fervor of his thoughts.

"Yes, art is long," he murmured to himself while slowly descending to the pension parlor for his cup of tea.

John Holland dropped in occasionally at that hour. This celebrity, who knew so many interesting persons, who had surely moved in all sorts of imposing circles, displayed in the pension a homely satisfaction.

He talked with Aurelius about the Outwall legacy, of which payment was now almost due.

"And have you decided how to invest the money?"

"Invest it? You mean, promote some worthy enterprise?"

"I mean put it in good securities, with assured principal and interest."

"It 's true, I 've been thinking of certain projects in which I might be tempted to engage if this fortune were to remain in my possession. But stocks and bonds? Wall Street has always seemed to me a perilous place. But, after all, so far as the investment is concerned, I suppose that will be for the children to decide."

And Aurelius, smoothing down his bushy beard of red and gray, sat back with

a cheerful smile, his high, white forehead tranquil, his kindly, sunken eyes fixed benevolently on space.

John Holland shook his head.

"In my opinion," he said, "if you 're determined to relinquish the whole sum, you had better place it in the hands of a reliable trust company, which would pay your daughters a fixed income. Thus one is sure of the principal remaining intact." "And what is the return on such investments?"

"Usually four and a half per cent." "Let me see. Is n't that rather small?" "On the other hand, it is virtually safe."

"What a pity it seems! For myself, I care little about it, but I should like my children to have still more money. If only it were possible to find an opportunity for one of those great coups we read about! I admit I should like to double, yes, even triple, the amount before turning it over to the girls."

"Take my advice; dismiss that idea from your mind at once."

But Aurelius regretted that his promise to M. Farazounis prevented him from telling of the treasure buried in the pyramid. How a historian of dead races would have enjoyed that tale! And maybe Mr. Holland would have abandoned his dislike of all investments beyond the range of "sound trust companies" had he known that off there in Egypt lay a vast wealth of gold and silver, of pearls and rubies and what-not, all waiting for those who should equip a desert caravan, a train of camels in sufficient numbers, to bring off that fabulous hoard?

Was it by telepathic influence that these thoughts impinged so sharply upon Mr. Goodchild's brain? That very day Constantine Farazounis returned to Florence. The following afternoon, spying Aurelius through the plate-glass window of the Café Hirsch, the Greek dashed in through the doorway with a rapturous cry, and almost embraced his friend before the interested patrons.

"My gentleman! To think that I rejoin your sympathetic company at last!"

"Yes, you have been away for ages."

"My travels, ah, let us not talk of them, my sir! The life of a dog! But see; all in my wanderings your gift was in my hand!" And M. Farazounis thrust forward dramatically the cane with the golden sphinx's head, his Christmas present from Aurelius.

"Meanwhile," the latter responded with a shy smile, "I 've worn your scarab."

"It is so! What friends we are, we two! Otto! Is he still here, that Otto? Black coffee, Otto, and plenty of pastry, and a pack of Giubek cigarettes. Remember, to-day I pay the bill!"

"Black coffee, pastry, Giubeks," moaned Otto, as his short legs, bending from an exhaustion due to chronic melancholy, bore his fat little body slowly away to the buffet.

"You have not yet found an associate for that enterprise?" asked Mr. Goodchild, timidly.

"Ha! Who can I trust so much? Excuse me, the world are not all like you, my gentleman. But enough for now! Here comes Otto, the spy perhaps of German archæologists, with those big ears of his."

And as the lugubrious little Swiss waiter scuffled to the table with his tray, M. Constantine Farazounis, humming an exotic tune, looked innocently out through the plate-glass window upon the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.

But suddenly he uttered an exclamation of surprise. A woman had just passed along the street, a raven-haired, strikinglooking person of many curves and undulations. Mr. Goodchild's mouth fell open. It was the International Star!

"What," he exclaimed, "you know that lady?"

M. Farazounis gave Aurelius a swift look of speculation, then craned his neck. elaborately after the departing vaudeville actress. With a laugh of vexation he responded:

"Something funny is the matter with my eyes to-day! I took her for a Sicilian contessa who once bought from me some

is familiar to you, my sir?"

"I have seen her and admired her performance on the stage. Her name is Madame Nella Tesore. I'm sorry that you don't know her; you might possibly have asked her permission to present me for a moment's chat. I should have taken much pleasure in complimenting her exceptional artistry."

The Greek, after staring at Aurelius for some seconds as if in a trance, wagged his head with profound regret.

"I, too, am veree sorry that I have not the honors of this madame's acquaintance."

When it was time for them to part, M. Farazounis promised faithfully to return. to the Café Hirsch the following afternoon. And this he was kind enough to do, so that Mr. Goodchild's romantic friendship with the adventurer began to flourish as before. Otto, to whom the Greek had taken an antipathy, now seldom found the chance to droop beside the marble-topped table and pour out his troubles to Aurelius.

One day, however, when Farazounis had not yet appeared, the rotund little waiter confessed that he was nearly ready to give up the struggle of life.

"Ach, but I am tired of it all, Mr. Gootschild-the same black coffees alvays to and fro, the same sore feet, the same artists and penny-a-liners mit their penny tips, the same prison-valls around me! Only a vaiter, yes; but in here, in my bosom, is something yet! Here is still stewing and bubbling the old thoughts vhat I had vhen I vas young. And some days, vhen all this boils up in my heart, I could take off my apron and throw it in the face of the proprietor, and shout out before the whole Café Hirsch: 'I am done! I am a human soul, not the slave of a Kaffee-Haus-keeper mit so small a genius vhat I vould n't allow him to peel vegetabbles in an hotel of mine. I am finished mit you all, mit you, dumkopf chef, who have never in your life served up a crêpes des gourmets, or a faisan à la financière, or a poulard Albufera, and mit you also, sqvalid clientele, who have never eaten

you, pig-dog of a vorld, vhat permits me to die unsatisfied in my honest ambitions!'"

Aurelius protested:

"My poor Otto, with those words you seem to give me a clue to your misfortunes. Perhaps in upbraiding the world, in feeling this hostility to your associates, you repel the favorable influences of the universe. By your bitterness you shut out the divine benevolence; your despair isolates you from the current of celestial supply; in short, you are out of tune with the infinite. But smile on humanity, and see how quickly it will smile on you! Replace your sense of lack with an expectation of prosperity, and note the change in fortune! 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' We are all the makers of our lives; the remedy lies with ourselves in this, as in every other karma."

And Mr. Goodchild, his lean, blackclad body erect against the mirror-lined wall, his ascetic, bearded face illumined by a missionary's zeal, preached for the little waiter's benefit the doctrine of New Thought, strongly flavored with theosophy, as he heard it nowadays from the lips of Princess Tchernitza. For his acquaintance with the obese Bulgarian had not ended at the carnival ball.

With April creeping northward, with a blander sunshine covering the hills, Thallie was often forced to stay at home, in her long-chair by the open window, motionless beneath a vast lassitude, oppressed by what seemed to her an eternal hopelessness. With a thrill of anguish she heard the first provocative notes of questing birds. Ah, if only spring would stay away-this cruel, sweet spring, in all its manifestation so poignantly suggesting the hours that would never come again! Its sounds, its pure scents, its delicate colors and soft caresses, caused the half-healed wounds to reopen, as if this maimed heart, like all the rest of nature, were automatically swelling with the old fervor.

But the others did not let Thallie have many of those wretched hours. They drew her out with them on fresh excur

sions into the country, where spring, alas! was more evident than in the city. The Easter season came round; on Good Friday they packed her off to Grassina, a little town not far from Florence, where at twilight, down from the church amid a blaze of torches, wended a humble, pinchbeck cortège to illustrate the Passion. On Easter day John Holland took them to a window overlooking the Piazza del Duomo, where, to the banging of fireworks, a mechanical dove, emerging from a tall car, rushed sputtering on a wire into the cathedral and straight up to the high altar.

Then the opera season began at the Politeama Fiorentino. And there, of all places, Thallie had to sit listening to the music of Puccini.

Between the acts they noticed a big man with a pear-shaped face and a black, fanlike beard. John Holland pronounced his name. It was Valentino Mughetto, the singing-teacher who had sentenced Aglaia to a life of silence. And through the rest of the opera Mr. Goodchild thought only of his poor Aggie, in far-off Devonshire.

If he could just feel sure that she was happy there!

As a matter of fact, Aglaia was as happy in England as she had expected to be. Even before her marriage to Cyril Bellegram she had felt that serious dilemmas awaited her at Twelve Chimneys, Devonshire. She had taken it for granted that she would encounter there the famous "insular prejudice"; she had anticipated the resentment of an established family forced to admit a nobody into their circle; she had even been prepared to have the animosity of the Bellegrams leveled at her alone. In none of these presumptions was she altogether disappointed.

She found her new relatives polite, but cool. She immediately perceived that they considered this union a misalliance. And at dinner on the night of her arrival it was evident that her father-in-law, the baronet, had determined to procure as soon as possible a berth for Cyril in some foreign land.

Aggie had no objection to that plan. She had never intended to remain at Twelve Chimneys longer than was absolutely necessary. Though impressed despite herself by England and the Bellegrams, Aggie was not the one to long for a lifetime of subservience to either. Since she had invested, so to speak, in Cyril; she wanted to develop her new property without patriarchal or conventional interference. All the ardor with which she had once aspired to be a prima donna was now diverted to the alternative, the desire to become the helpmate of a diplomatic attaché. Her weeks of humdrum country life in Devonshire strengthened, instead of weakening, this intention. So the baronet, by placing Cyril in some distant post at the disposal of the foreign office, would be doing her the greatest favor in his power.

This is not to say that Aggie made no effort to change the Bellegrams' attitude. toward her. Indeed, her nature almost rejoiced in the problem of abating their distrust and prejudice. From the hour of her arrival at Twelve Chimneys she went to work with all her wiles, employing one general method for the women, another for the men, and yet using against each person a still more special manner of appeal. In consequence, the Bellegram family began to change their minds about her; and when it became known that something highly interesting was going to happen before long, the general thaw was resolved into a freshet of friendliness.

As for Cyril, he redoubled his demonstrations of gratitude and awe. Even in familiarity, this fragile creature of pale tints and subtle graces remained for him the epitome of all his dream-girls.

His emotions never failed to interest Aglaia. Still, in the midst of the most fervid expressions of his love, she sometimes felt a curious pity, for herself as well as for her husband, because she was forced to feign the commensurate enthusiasm that he could not evoke. Would her sisters, she asked herself, suffer that same disillusionment? She wondered if Frossie, for instance, would find behind the veil of

Aphrodite's sanctuary something that she had missed. For there was no doubt in her mind that Frossie would soon be married to Camillo Olivuzzi.

Indeed, Camillo and Frossie were of the same opinion.

Their romance was peculiar in that there had been no actual proposal of marriage. Long since, in their tête-àtêtes, there had stolen over them a feeling of curious familiarity, a satisfaction so nearly perfect that they seemed to have been gravitating toward each other from the beginning of the world. They were, indeed, less like newly found affinities than lovers who had come together after a long separation. All the preliminary petitions and avowals appeared to have been made in the remotest past, far beyond the border-land of memory, and now, as if on the verge of a predestined reunion, they moved with more than youth's assurance toward their future.

Indeed, while considering the future, they often fell to talking as though they were already married. Camillo, whose early years in the wild hills of the Abruzzi had implanted in him much of the simplicity of nature, was incapable of the evasive thoughts which make many engagements seem the prelude of an immaterial relationship. Frossie, who had once been the most prudish of the Goodchild family, felt her reticence already giving way to frankness when she planned with this inevitable mate the details of their life in common. Her healthy longings were thoroughly permeated by the maternal instinct now, and with one clear look she would promise Camillo not only love, but also in brimming measure its perennially legitimate rewards. Those two harmonious young persons even got so far as to agree on the upbringing of their children.

"It must be soon," they told each other, gaze melting into gaze, as their very souls seemed to swell forward, impatient for that final interminglement.

And again Camillo wondered if he ought not to inform his father of their purpose.

The old Count Olivuzzi, a gentleman of exquisite punctiliousness despite his rural life, would certainly think it needful to journey from his rickety old hill-fortress down to Florence, inspect the bride-to-be, and approach Mr. Goodchild with a ceremonious proposal. Camillo, though his admiration for everything American suggested a less formal course, was too fond of his father to deny him this exercise of dignity. On one point, however, the young lieutenant was privately determined to defy tradition: there should be no argument about a dowry.

"Here is one marriage, at least," Camillo decided, "that shall not be called a dollar-hunt. All Florence, and as much of the rest of Italy as cares to look, shall see a man who pays his American wife the compliment of wedding her for herself."

But since his father would be sure to object, and at the top of his voice, to any such generosity, Camillo, out of reluctance to begin that altercation, still postponed sending off the news. Nevertheless, they had decided to be married in June.

Love, far from interfering with her writing, had acted on it as a tonic: the impulse to create had stimulated even the immaterial function of artistic effort. Her literary endeavors were now informed with a new clarity and ease; the pen glided more surely than before; when the day's work was done there were fewer torn pages in the waste-paper basket. Frossie believed that at last she was on the road to solid accomplishment. studying all the technical books provided by John Holland, she had finally abandoned the field of historical fiction for the realistic style.

After

Now and then she read one of her chapters to Camillo.

"Why, look here, that is you and I!" he would exclaim, with sudden excite

ment.

"Yes, perhaps it is you and I; but it is life, too."

"Ah, that! I should say so! And beautiful as well."

"And beautiful as well."

"How happy they are!" thought Thal