nervously, her eyes
downcast for fear her mother would read their discomfort and her
knowledge of the pitiful duplicity, and her cheeks a quick shamed
scarlet.

"She will have to--to repair the expense," flashed Lucia with a shrill
laugh. "Such expenditure, when you have just been preaching economy on
my trousseau!"

"One must economize on the trousseau when the bridegroom has cost the
fortune," Maria found her wicked little tongue to say and Lucia turned
sallow beneath her olive.

Briskly Mamma intervened. "We are thinking not of one of you but all.
Now no more words, my little ones. There is too much to be done."

There was indeed, with this trip to be arranged for before the onrush of
Lucia's preparation! Once committed to the great adventure it quickly
took on the outer aspects of reality. There were clothes to be made and
clothes to be bought, there were discussions, decisions, debates and
conjectures and consultations. A thousand preparations to be pushed in
haste, and at once the big bedroom of Mamma blossomed with delicate
fabrics, with bright ribbons and frilly laces, and amid the blossoming,
the whir of the machine and the feet and hands of the two-lire-a-day
seamstress went like mad clockwork, while in and out Mamma's friends
came hurrying, at the rumor, to hint of congratulation or suggest a
style, an advice.

The contagion of excitement seized everyone, so that even Lucia was
inspired to lend her clever fingers from her own preparations for
September.

"But not to be back by then! Not here for my wedding--that would be too
odd!" she complained with the persistent ill-will she had shown the
expedition.

Shrewd enough to divine its purpose and practical enough to perceive the
necessity for it, the older girl cherished her instinctive objection to
any pleasure that did not include her in its scope or that threatened
to overcast her own festivities.

"That will depend," returned Mamma sedately, "upon the circumstance. Our
cousins may not easily find a suitable chaperon for your sister's
return. And they may have plans for her entertainment. We must leave
that to them."

A little panic-stricken, Maria Angelina perceived that _she_ was being
left to them--until otherwise disposed of!

So fast had preparations whirled them on, that parting was upon the girl
before she divined the coming pain of it. Then in the last hours her
heart was wrung.

She stared at the dear familiar rooms, the streets an