ht." She held out her hand.

Lady Alice took it.

"Good-night. And remember!"

"I sha'n't want anybody," said Kitty. "<i>Addio!</i>" She waved her hand, and
Alice Wensleydale, whose way lay towards the Piazza, saw her disappear,
a small tripping shadow, between the high, close-piled houses.

Kitty was in so much excitement after this conversation that when she
reached the Campo San Maurizio, where she should have turned abruptly to
the left, she wandered awhile up and down the campo, looking at the
gondolas on the Traghetto between it and the Accademia, at the Church of
San Maurizio, at the rising moon, and the bright lights in some of the
shop windows of the small streets to the north. The sea-wind was still
warm and gusty, and the waves in the Grand Canal beat against the marble
feet of its palaces.

At last she found her way through narrow passages, past hidden and
historic buildings, to the back of the palace on the Grand Canal in
which their rooms were. A door in a small court opened to her ring. She
found herself in a dark ground-floor--empty except for the <i>felze</i> or
black top of a gondola--of which the farther doors opened on the canal.
A cheerful Italian servant brought lights, and on the marble stairs was
her maid waiting for her. In a few minutes she was on her sofa by a
bright wood fire, while Blanche hovered round her with many small
attentions.

"Have you seen your letters, my lady?" and Blanche handed her a pile.
Upon a parcel lying uppermost Kitty pounced at once with avidity. She
tore it open--pausing once, with scarlet cheeks, to look round her at
the door, as though she were afraid of being seen.

A book--fresh and new--emerged. <i>Politics and the Country Houses</i>; so
ran the title on the back. Kitty looked at it frowning. "He might have
found a better name!" Then she opened it--looked at a page here and a
page there--laughed, shivered--and at last bethought her to read the
note from the publisher which accompanied it.

"'Much pleasure--the first printed copy--three more to follow--sure to
make a sensation'--hateful wretch!--'if your ladyship will let us
know how many presentation copies--' Goodness!--not <i>one</i>!
Oh--well!--Madeleine, perhaps--and, of course, Mr. Darrell."

She opened a little despatch-box in which she kept her letters, and
slipped the book in.

"I won't show it to William to-night--not--not till next week." The book
was to be out on the 20th, a week ahead--thr