s garden will
become,--and at every turn the ghost of some past joy!"

Annunziata looked up with eyes that seemed omniscient.

"I was thinking about you," she greeted them.

"About which of us?" asked John.

"About both of you. I always now, since a long while, think of you both
together. I think Maria Dolores is the dark woman whom Prospero is to
marry."

John laughed. Maria Dolores looked out of the window.

"And I was thinking," Annunziata went on, "how strange it was that if
you hadn't both at the same time just happened to come to Sant'
Alessina, you might have lived and died and never have known each
other."

"Perish that thought," laughed John. "But I have sometimes thought it
myself."

"And then," Annunziata rounded out her tale, "I thought that perhaps you
had not just happened--that probably you had been led."

"That is a thing I haven't a doubt of," John with energy affirmed.

"You look as if you were very glad about something--both of you," said
Annunziata, those omniscient eyes of hers studying their faces. "What is
it that you are both so glad of?"

"We are so glad to find you feeling so well," answered Maria Dolores.

But Annunziata shook her head, as one who knew better. "No--that is not
the only thing. You are glad of something else besides."

"There's no taking you in," said John. "But we are under bonds to treat
that Something Else as the Pope sometimes treats Princes of the Church."

"He gives them red hats," said Annunziata.

"I shall give this thing a crown of myrtle," said John.

"You sometimes say things that sound as if they hadn't any sense,"
Annunziata informed him, with patient indulgence, nodding at the
ceiling.

Maria Dolores leaned over the bed, and kissed Annunziata's brow. "Good
night, carina," she murmured.

Annunziata put up her little white arms, and encircled Maria Dolores'
neck. Then she kissed her four times--on the brow, on the chin, on the
left cheek, on the right. "That is a cross of kisses," she explained.
"It is the way my mother used to kiss me. It means may the four Angels
of Peace, Grace, Holiness, and Wisdom watch over your sleep."

But early next morning, John being still on duty, Maria Dolores came
back,--booted and spurred for her journey, in tailor-made tweeds, with a
little felt toque and a veil: a costume of which Annunziata's eyes were
quick to catch the suggestion.

"Why are you dressed like that?" she asked, uneasily. "I never saw you
dre