charmingly so! Are you coming
in, Guido?"

He rose, and standing erect, almost lifted her from her chair and
folded her in his arms.

"Yes, I AM coming in," he answered; "and I will have a hundred kisses
for every look and smile you bestowed on the conte! You little
coquette! You would flirt with your grandfather!"

She rested against him with apparent tenderness, one hand playing with
the flower in his buttonhole, and then she said, with a slight accent
of fear in her voice--

"Tell me, Guido, do you not think he is a little like--like FABIO? Is
there not a something in his manner that seems familiar?"

"I confess I have fancied so once or twice," he returned, musingly;
"there is rather a disagreeable resemblance. But what of that? many men
are almost counterparts of each other. But I tell you what I think. I
am almost positive he is some long-lost relation of the family--Fabio's
uncle for all we know, who does not wish to declare his actual
relationship. He is a good old fellow enough, I believe, and is
certainly rich as Croesus; he will be a valuable friend to us both.
Come, sposina mia, it is time to go to rest."

And they disappeared within the house, and shut the windows after them.
I immediately left my hiding-place, and resumed my way toward Naples. I
was satisfied they had no suspicion of the truth. After all, it was
absurd of me to fancy they might have, for people in general do not
imagine it possible for a buried man to come back to life again. The
game was in my own hands, and I now resolved to play it out with as
little delay as possible.

CHAPTER XVI.

Time flew swiftly on--a month, six weeks, passed, and during that short
space I had established myself in Naples as a great personage--great,
because of my wealth and the style in which I lived. No one in all the
numerous families of distinction that eagerly sought my acquaintance
cared whether I had intellect or intrinsic personal worth; it sufficed
to them that I kept a carriage and pair, an elegant and costly
equipage, softly lined with satin and drawn by two Arabian mares as
black as polished ebony. The value of my friendship was measured by the
luxuriousness of my box at the opera, and by the dainty fittings of my
yacht, a swift trim vessel furnished with every luxury, and having on
board a band of stringed instruments which discoursed sweet music when
the moon emptied her horn of silver radiance on the rippling water. In
a little wh