y cobbler's son has disappeared--has vanished in a blaze of glory,"
her Serene Highness explained, and laughed.

"I don't understand," said Frau Brandt. "He has not left Sant'
Alessina?"

"No, but he isn't a cobbler's son at all--he's merely been masquerading
as one--his name is not Brown, Jones, or Robinson--his name is the
high-sounding name of Blanchemain, and he's heir to an English peerage."

"Ah, so? He is then noble?" Frau Brandt inferred, raising her eyes, with
satisfaction.

"As noble as need be. An English peer is marriageable. So here's adieu
to my cottage in the air."

"Here's good riddance to it," said Frau Brandt.

That evening, at the hour of sunset, Maria Dolores met John in the
garden.

"You had a visitor this afternoon," she announced. "A most inspiritingly
young old lady, as soft and white as a powder-puff, in a carriage that
was like a coach-and-four. Lady Blanchemain. She is leaving to-morrow
for England. She desired me to give you her farewell blessing."

"It will be doubly precious to me by reason of the medium through which
it comes," said John, with his courtliest obeisance.

There was a little pause, during which she looked at the western sky.
But presently, "Why did you tell me you had an uncle who was a farmer?"
she asked, beginning slowly to pace down the pathway.

"Did I tell you that? I suppose I had a boastful fit upon me," John
replied.

"But it very much misled me," said Maria Dolores.

"Oh, it's perfectly true," said John.

"You are the heir to a peerage," said Maria Dolores.

John had a gesture.

"There you are," he said; "and my uncle, the peer, spends much of his
time and most of his money breeding sheep and growing turnips. If that
isn't a farmer, I should like to know what is."

"I hope you displayed less reticence regarding your station in the world
to that woman you were in love with," said she.

"That woman I _was_ in love with?" John caught her up. "That woman I
_am_ in love with, please."

"Oh? Are you still in love with her?" Maria Dolores wondered. "It is so
long since you have spoken of her, I thought your heart was healed."

"If I have not spoken of her, it has been because I was under the
impression that you had tacitly forbidden me to do so," John informed
her.

"So I had," she admitted. "But I find that there is such a thing--as
being too well obeyed."

She brought out her last words, after the briefest possible suspension,
hurriedly, in a v