l vapour. It's a real material form, that lives and
breathes, and even, if driven to it, speaks. There's nothing
supernatural about it,--unless, indeed, we take the transcendental view
that Nature herself is supernatural. I was wondering, Don Ambrogio,
whether, without violating a confidence, you could tell me whose form it
is?"

"Nossignore," said Don Ambrogio, economizing his breath.

"Ah," sighed John, nodding resignedly, "I feared as much. Divining that
I would institute inquiries, she has stolen a march upon me, and pledged
you to secrecy."

"Nossignore," disavowed Don Ambrogio, raising eyes the sincerity of
which there could be no suspecting.

John's face took on an expression of aggrieved surprise.

"But then why won't you tell me?"

"I cannot tell you because I do not know," said Don Ambrogio.

"Oh, I see," said John. "And yet," he argued meditatively, "that's hard
to conceive. I don't for a moment mean that I doubt it--but it's hard to
conceive, like the atomic theory, and some of the articles of religion.
(I hear, by-the-by, that the scientists are throwing the atomic theory
over. Oh, fickle scientists! Oh, shifting sands of science!) Surely
there can't be many such tall slender forms, in diaphanous garments,
appearing and disappearing here and there in your parish? And one would
suppose, antecedently, that you'd know them all."

"A peasant, a villager," said Don Ambrogio.

"I put it to you as an observer of life," said John, "do peasants, do
villagers, wear diaphanous garments?"

"A visitor, a sight-seer, from some place on the lake," said Don
Ambrogio.

"I put it to you as a student of probabilities," said John, "would a
visitor, would a sight-seer, from some place on the lake, walk in the
garden of the castle without a hat? And would she appear at Sant'
Alessina on two days in succession?"

But Don Ambrogio had finished his veal, and when he had finished his
veal he always left the table, first twice devoutly making the sign of
the Cross, and then with a bow to John, pronouncing the formula, "You
will graciously permit? My affairs call me. A thousand regrets." To-day
he slightly amplified that formula. "A thousand regrets," he said, "and
as many excuses for my inability to afford the information desired."

After his departure, John turned to Annunziata, where, in her grey
cotton pinafore, her lips parted, her big eyes two lively points of
interrogation, she sat opposite to him, impatient to