only by a gesture to go on.
So on they floated.

Barbara had obeyed without thought Mr. Sumner's sudden request to
accompany him. But no sooner had they stepped into the gondola than she
wished, oh, so earnestly! that she had made some excuse.

As Mr. Sumner did not speak, she tried to make some commonplace remark,
but her voice would not reach her lips; so she sat, flushed and
wondering, timid and silent.

At last he spoke, gravely and tenderly, of his early life, when she, a
little girl, had known him; of his love and hope; of his sorrow and the
years of lonely work in foreign lands; of his sister's coming; of his
meeting with them all, and of how much they had brought into his life.
But, as he looked up, he could not wait to finish the story as he had
planned. He saw the sweet, flushed face so near him, the downcast eyes,
the little hand that tried to keep from trembling but could not, and
his voice grew sharp with longing:--

"Barbara! oh, little Barbara! you have made me love you as I never have
dreamed of love. Can you love me a little, Barbara? Will you be my
wife?" And he held out his hands, but dared not touch her.

Would she never answer? Would she never lift the eyelids that seemed to
droop more and more closely upon the crimson cheeks? Had he frightened
her? Was she only so sorry for him? Was Betty mistaken, after all?

But when, with a voice already quivering with apprehension, he again
spoke her name, what a revelation!

With head thrown back and with smiling, though quivering, lips, Barbara
looked at him, her eyes glowing with the unutterable tenderness he had
sometimes dreamed of. She did not utter a word, but there was no need.
The whole flood of her love, so long repressed, spoke straight to his
heart.

The gondola curtains flapped closer in the breeze. The gondolier hummed
a musical love-ditty, while his oars moved in slow rhythm. It was Venice
and June.

Chapter XX.

Return from Italy.

_To come back from the sweet South, to the North
Where I was born, bred, look to die;
Come back to do my day's work in its day,
Play out my play--
Amen, amen say I._

--ROSSETTI.

[Illustration: MILAN CATHEDRAL.]

When Robert Sumner and Barbara returned, they found Mrs. Douglas alone.
At the first glance she knew that all was well, and received them with
smiles, and tears, and warm expressions of delight.

In a moment, however, Barbara--her eyes still shin