residents. Telegrams were to be seen there; and there was anxious
news from the Balkans.

Kitty merely insisted that she could not and would not go without her
remaining Tintoret, and the others yielded to her at once, with that
indulgent tenderness one shows to the wilfulness of a sick child. She
and Margaret followed the sacristan. Ashe lingered behind in a passage
of the church, surreptitiously reading an Italian newspaper. He had the
ordinary cultivated pleasure in pictures; but this ardor which Kitty was
throwing into her pursuit of Tintoret--the Wagner of painting--left him
cold. He did not attempt to keep up with her.

Two ladies were already in the cloister chapel, with a gentleman. As
Kitty and her friend entered, these persons had just finished their
inspection of the damaged but most beautiful "Pieta" which hangs over
the altar, and their faces were towards the entrance.

"Maman!" cried Kitty, in amazement.

The lady addressed started, put up a gold-rimmed eye-glass, exclaimed,
and hurried forward.

Kitty and she embraced, amid a torrent of laughter and interjections
from the elder lady, and then Kitty, whose pale cheeks had put on
scarlet, turned to Margaret French.

"Margaret!--my mother, Madame d'Estrees."

Miss French, who found herself greeted with effusion by the strange
lady, saw before her a woman of fifty, marvellously preserved. Madame
d'Estrees had grown stout; so much time had claimed; but the elegant
gray dress with its floating chiffon and lace skilfully concealed the
fact; and for the rest, complexion, eyes, lips were still defiant of the
years. If it were art that had achieved it, nature still took the
credit; it was so finely done, the spectator could only lend himself and
admire. Under the pretty hat of gray tulle, whereof the strings were
tied bonnet-fashion under the plump chin, there looked out, indeed, a
face gay, happy, unconcerned, proof one might have thought of an
innocent past and a good conscience.

Kitty, who had drawn back a little, eyed her mother oddly.

"I thought you were in Paris. Your letter said you wouldn't be able to
move for weeks--"

"<i>Ma chere!</i>--<i>un miracle!</i>" cried Madame d'Estrees, blushing, however,
under her thin white veil. "When I wrote to you, I was at death's
door--wasn't I?" She appealed to her companion, without waiting for an
answer. "Then some one told me of a new doctor, and in ten days, <i>me
voici</i>! They insisted on my going a