ive me a cigar, will you, old
man, I left some awfully good ones at Como, worse luck--and I don't mind
telling you that Ellie's no judge of tobacco, and that Nick's too far
gone in bliss to care what he smokes," Strefford grumbled, stretching a
hand toward his host's cigar-case.

"I do like jewellery best," Clarissa murmured, hugging her father.

Nelson Vanderlyn's first word to his wife had been that he had
brought her all her toggery; and she had welcomed him with appropriate
enthusiasm. In fact, to the lookers-on her joy at seeing him seemed
rather too patently in proportion to her satisfaction at getting her
clothes. But no such suspicion appeared to mar Mr. Vanderlyn's happiness
in being, for once, and for nearly twenty-four hours, under the same
roof with his wife and child. He did not conceal his regret at having
promised his mother to join her the next day; and added, with a wistful
glance at Ellie: "If only I'd known you meant to wait for me!"

But being a man of duty, in domestic as well as business affairs, he did
not even consider the possibility of disappointing the exacting old lady
to whom he owed his being. "Mother cares for so few people," he used to
say, not without a touch of filial pride in the parental exclusiveness,
"that I have to be with her rather more than if she were more sociable";
and with smiling resignation he gave orders that Clarissa should be
ready to start the next evening.

"And meanwhile," he concluded, "we'll have all the good time that's
going."

The ladies of the party seemed united in the desire to further this
resolve; and it was settled that as soon as Mr. Vanderlyn had despatched
a hasty luncheon, his wife, Clarissa and Susy should carry him off for a
tea-picnic at Torcello. They did not even suggest that Strefford or Nick
should be of the party, or that any of the other young men of the group
should be summoned; as Susy said, Nelson wanted to go off alone with his
harem. And Lansing and Strefford were left to watch the departure of the
happy Pasha ensconced between attentive beauties.

"Well--that's what you call being married!" Strefford commented, waving
his battered Panama at Clarissa.

"Oh, no, I don't!" Lansing laughed.

"He does. But do you know--" Strefford paused and swung about on his
companion--"do you know, when the Rude Awakening comes, I don't care to
be there. I believe there'll be some crockery broken."

"Shouldn't wonder," Lansing answered indifferen