reading
Mediterranean; the little rowboat ride to Amalfi; the day full of
interest spent there; and then the drive close beside the sea toward
Palermo, terminated by a sharp turn toward the blue mountains among
which nestles La Cava; the railway ride back to Naples.

She struggled bravely to be her old self,--to hide everything from all
eyes. But she felt so wofully humiliated, for she now knew for the first
time that she loved Robert Sumner; loved him so that it was positive
agony to think that he might love another,--so that it was almost a pain
to remember that he had ever loved. What would he think should he
suspect the truth! And she was so fearful that her eyes might give a
hint of it that, try in as many ways as he could, Mr. Sumner could
never get a good look into them during these days. The kinder he was,
and the more zealously he endeavored to add to her comfort and
happiness, the more wretched she grew. She longed to get away from
everybody, even from Betty, lest her secret might become apparent to the
keen sisterly affection that knew her so intimately. She began to feel a
fierce longing for home and for father and mother; and the months which
must necessarily elapse before she could be there stretched drearily
before her.

Robert Sumner was perplexed and distressed. He had just begun to enjoy a
certain happiness. The struggle within himself was over, and he was
beginning to give himself up to the delight of thinking freely of
Barbara; of loving her; of feeling a sort of possession of her, though
he did not yet dream of such a thing as ever being to her more than he
now was,--a valued friend. There were so many years, and an experience
of life that counted far more than years, between them!

He had listened to his sister's conversation with Miss Sherman on the
way from Pompeii to Sorrento with an exultation which it would have been
difficult for him to account for. He gloried in the sweet unselfishness,
the simple goodness of the young girl. "My little Barbara," his heart
sang; and full of this emotion when they reached Sorrento, he allowed
the two ladies to go alone into the hotel, while he waited impatiently
to look into Barbara's face and to feel the touch of her hand.

But what a change! What could have wrought it? Before this, she had
always met his look with such frank sympathy! As the days passed on
without change, and his eyes, more than any others, noticed the struggle
to conceal her unhappiness