it before."

"Yes; I knew your uncle; and," he added with especial emphasis, "I knew
his wife."

"Well?"

"Well, I can't say I felt any particular interest in either of them.
Nothing happened afterwards to put me in mind of the acquaintance till
you told me who the young lady was, just now.

"Surely my mother must have reminded you?"

"Not that I can remember. Women in her position don't much fancy talking
of a relative who has married"--he stopped to choose his next words. "I
don't want to be rude; suppose we say married beneath him?"

Reflection told Ovid that this was true. Even in conversation with
himself (before the arrival in England of Robert's Will), his mother
rarely mentioned her brother--and still more rarely his family. There
was another reason for Mrs. Gallilee's silence, known only to herself.
Robert was in the secret of her debts, and Robert had laid her under
heavy pecuniary obligations. The very sound of his name was revolting to
his amiable sister: it reminded her of that humiliating sense, known in
society as a sense of gratitude.

Carmina was still waiting--and there was nothing further to be gained by
returning to the subject of her mother with such a man as Benjulia. Ovid
held out his hand to say good-bye.

Taking the offered hand readily enough, the doctor repeated his odd
question--"I haven't been rude, have I?"--with an unpleasant appearance
of going through a form purely for form's sake. Ovid's natural
generosity of feeling urged him to meet the advance, strangely as it had
been made, with a friendly reception.

"I am afraid it is I who have been rude," he said. "Will you go back
with me, and be introduced to Carmina?"

Benjulia made his acknowledgments in his own remarkable way. "No, thank
you," he said, quietly, "I'd rather see the monkey."

CHAPTER XIV.

In the meantime, Zo had become the innocent cause of a difference of
opinion between two no less dissimilar personages than Maria and the
duenna.

Having her mind full of the sick monkey, the child felt a natural
curiosity to see the other monkeys who were well. Amiable Miss Minerva
consulted her young friend from Italy before she complied with Zo's
wishes. Would Miss Carmina like to visit the monkey-house? Ovid's
cousin, remembering Ovid's promise, looked towards the end of the walk.
He was not returning to her--he was not even in sight. Carmina resigned
herself to circumstances, with a little air of pique which was