trange business of Georgina's. I relate rather a complicated
fact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady's anxieties,
indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke her
down. Various persons whom she knew in Borne notified her that the air
of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable to her, and she had made
up her mind to return to her native land, when she found that, in her
depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She was
unable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of an
illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was not
obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the present occasion
was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made its
appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
Georgina's attentions to her patient and protectress had been
unremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after this
sad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort and
hospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under a
proper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, and
re-entered her father's house, where she took to plain dressing; for she
sent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in
the Genoese hills.

IV.

"Why should he come if he doesn't like you? He is under no obligation,
and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a
time, and why should he be so pleasant?"

"Do you think he is very pleasant?" Kate Theory asked, turning away her
face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
inquiry.

This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, "Kate
Theory, don't be affected!"

"Perhaps it's for you he comes. I don't see why he should n't; you are
far more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How
can he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can
talk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of
the statues and bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor
darling! but which you know more about than he does, than any one does.
What was it you began on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods
about Magna Graecia. And then--and then--" But with