told that
this was the only safe way to carry money in Italy; it must only
be broached within the walls of the English bank. As she groped she
murmured: "Whether it is Mr. Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr.
Eager who forgot when he told us, or whether they have decided to leave
Eleanor out altogether--which they could scarcely do--but in any case
we must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am only asked for
appearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor will
follow behind. A one-horse carriage would do for us. Yet how difficult
it is!"

"It is indeed," replied the girl, with a gravity that sounded
sympathetic.

"What do you think about it?" asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from the
struggle, and buttoning up her dress.

"I don't know what I think, nor what I want."

"Oh, dear, Lucy! I do hope Florence isn't boring you. Speak the word,
and, as you know, I would take you to the ends of the earth to-morrow."

"Thank you, Charlotte," said Lucy, and pondered over the offer.

There were letters for her at the bureau--one from her brother, full
of athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as only her
mother's letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which had
been bought for yellow and were coming up puce, of the new parlour-maid,
who had watered the ferns with essence of lemonade, of the semi-detached
cottages which were ruining Summer Street, and breaking the heart of Sir
Harry Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she
was allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her.
The road up through the pine-woods, the clean drawing-room, the view
over the Sussex Weald--all hung before her bright and distinct, but
pathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which, after much experience, a
traveller returns.

"And the news?" asked Miss Bartlett.

"Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome," said Lucy, giving the news
that interested her least. "Do you know the Vyses?"

"Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear Piazza
Signoria."

"They're nice people, the Vyses. So clever--my idea of what's really
clever. Don't you long to be in Rome?"

"I die for it!"

The Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no grass,
no flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or comforting
patches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance--unless we believe in a
presiding genius of places--the statues that relieve its