but she said
I'd explain it. Clearly she knows nothing as yet."

But the revelation was not long delayed, and it came about in this wise.
I had a letter--a long letter--from Bittra from Rome, in which she wrote
enthusiastically about everything, for she had seen all the sacred
places and objects that make Rome so revered that even Protestants call
it home and feel lonely when leaving it. And she had seen the Holy
Father, and got blessings for us all,--for her own father, for Daddy
Dan, for Dolores, for Father Letheby. "And," she wrote, "I cannot tell
you what I felt when I put on the black dress and mantelletta and veil,
which are _de rigueur_ when a lady is granted an audience with the Pope.
I felt that this should be my costume, not my travelling bridal dress;
and I would have continued to wear it but that Rex preferred to see me
dressed otherwise. But it is all delightful. The dear old ruins, the
awful Coliseum, where Felicitas and Perpetua suffered, as you often told
us; and here Pancratius was choked by the leopard; and there were those
dreadful emperors and praetors, and even Roman women, looking down at the
whole horrible tragedy. I almost heard the howl of the wild beasts, and
saw them spring forward, and then crouch and creep onwards towards the
martyrs. Some day, Rex says, we'll all come here together again--you,
and papa, and Father Letheby,--and we'll have a real long holiday, and
Rex will be our guide, for he knows everything, and _he'll charge
nothing_." Alas! her presentiment about the mourning dress was not far
from verification. They travelled home rapidly, up through Lombardy,
merely glancing at Turin and Milan and the Lakes. At Milan they caught
the Swiss mail, and passed up and through the mountains, emerging from
the St. Gothard tunnel just as a trainful of passengers burst from the
refreshment rooms at Goschenen and thronged the mail to Brindisi. Here
they rested; and here Bittra, anxious to hear English or Irish news,
took up eagerly the "Times" of a month past, that lay on a side table,
and, after a few rapid glances, read:--

"A sad accident occurred off the Galway coast, on Monday, June----.
The 'Star of the Sea,' a new fishing-smack, especially built for
the deep-sea fisheries, was struck on her trial trip by a French
steamer and instantly submerged. Her crew were saved, except
Captain Campion, the well-known yachtsman, who had taken charge of
the boat for the oc