t the blue Italian sky.

Valrosa well deserved its name, for in that climate of perpetual summer
roses blossomed everywhere. They overhung the archway, thrust
themselves between the bars of the great gate with a sweet welcome to
passers-by, and lined the avenue, winding through lemon trees and
feathery palms up to the villa on the hill. Every shadowy nook, where
seats invited one to stop and rest, was a mass of bloom, every cool
grotto had its marble nymph smiling from a veil of flowers and every
fountain reflected crimson, white, or pale pink roses, leaning down to
smile at their own beauty. Roses covered the walls of the house, draped
the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of
the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean,
and the white-walled city on its shore.

"This is a regular honeymoon paradise, isn't it? Did you ever see such
roses?" asked Amy, pausing on the terrace to enjoy the view, and a
luxurious whiff of perfume that came wandering by.

"No, nor felt such thorns," returned Laurie, with his thumb in his
mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that
grew just beyond his reach.

"Try lower down, and pick those that have no thorns," said Amy,
gathering three of the tiny cream-colored ones that starred the wall
behind her. She put them in his buttonhole as a peace offering, and he
stood a minute looking down at them with a curious expression, for in
the Italian part of his nature there was a touch of superstition, and
he was just then in that state of half-sweet, half-bitter melancholy,
when imaginative young men find significance in trifles and food for
romance everywhere. He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny
red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones
like that from the greenhouse at home. The pale roses Amy gave him
were the sort that the Italians lay in dead hands, never in bridal
wreaths, and for a moment he wondered if the omen was for Jo or for
himself, but the next instant his American common sense got the better
of sentimentality, and he laughed a heartier laugh than Amy had heard
since he came.

"It's good advice, you'd better take it and save your fingers," she
said, thinking her speech amused him.

"Thank you, I will," he answered in jest, and a few months later he did
it in earnest.

"Laurie, when are you going to your grandfather?" she asked presently,
as she settled herself