sful, to his sense, as the rambles they had taken
together in Rome, for his companion only half surrendered herself to her
enjoyment, and seemed to have but a divided attention at her command.
Often, when she had begun with looking intently at a picture, her
silence, after an interval, made him turn and glance at her. He usually
found that if she was looking at the picture still, she was not seeing
it. Her eyes were fixed, but her thoughts were wandering, and an image
more vivid than any that Raphael or Titian had drawn had superposed
itself upon the canvas. She asked fewer questions than before, and
seemed to have lost heart for consulting guide-books and encyclopaedias.
From time to time, however, she uttered a deep, full murmur of
gratification. Florence in midsummer was perfectly void of travelers,
and the dense little city gave forth its aesthetic aroma with a larger
frankness, as the nightingale sings when the listeners have departed.
The churches were deliciously cool, but the gray streets were stifling,
and the great, dove-tailed polygons of pavement as hot to the tread as
molten lava. Rowland, who suffered from intense heat, would have found
all this uncomfortable in solitude; but Florence had never charmed him
so completely as during these midsummer strolls with his preoccupied
companion. One evening they had arranged to go on the morrow to the
Academy. Miss Garland kept her appointment, but as soon as she appeared,
Rowland saw that something painful had befallen her. She was doing her
best to look at her ease, but her face bore the marks of tears. Rowland
told her that he was afraid she was ill, and that if she preferred to
give up the visit to Florence he would submit with what grace he might.
She hesitated a moment, and then said she preferred to adhere to their
plan. "I am not well," she presently added, "but it 's a moral malady,
and in such cases I consider your company beneficial."

"But if I am to be your doctor," said Rowland, "you must tell me how
your illness began."

"I can tell you very little. It began with Mrs. Hudson being unjust to
me, for the first time in her life. And now I am already better!"

I mention this incident because it confirmed an impression of Rowland's
from which he had derived a certain consolation. He knew that Mrs.
Hudson considered her son's ill-regulated passion for Christina Light a
very regrettable affair, but he suspected that her manifest compassion
had been all for