ate it almost as much as I do, Mr. Bennam."

"I guess I do. I've half a mind to write the letter you want, myself."

"I've half a mind to let you--or the letter I'd like to write."

It had come to her thinking she would write again to Hinkle; but she
could not bring herself to do it. She often imagined doing it; she had
every word of such a letter in her mind; and she dramatized every fact
concerning it from the time she should put pen to paper, to the time when
she should get back the answer that cleared the mystery of his silence
away. The fond reveries helped her to bear her suspense; they helped to
make the days go by, to ease the doubt with which she lay down at night,
and the heartsick hope with which she rose up in the morning.

One day, at the hour of his wonted visit, she say the vice-consul from
her balcony coming, as it seemed to her, with another figure in his
gondola, and a thousand conjectures whirled through her mind, and then
centred upon one idea. After the first glance she kept her eyes down, and
would not look again while she told herself incessantly that it could not
be, and that she was a fool and a goose and a perfect coot, to think of
such a thing for a single moment. When she allowed herself, or forced
herself, to look a second time; as the boat drew near, she had to cling
to the balcony parapet for support, in her disappointment.

The person whom the vice-consul helped out of the gondola was an elderly
man like himself, and she took a last refuge in the chance that he might
be Hinkle's father, sent to bring her to him because he could not come to
her; or to soften some terrible news to her. Then her fancy fluttered and
fell, and she waited patiently for the fact to reveal itself. There was
something countrified in the figure of the man, and something clerical in
his face, though there was nothing in his uncouth best clothes that
confirmed this impression. In both face and figure there was a vague
resemblance to some one she had seen before, when the vice-consul said:

"Miss Claxon, I want to introduce the Rev. Mr. James B. Orson, of
Michigan." Mr. Orson took Clementina's hand into a dry, rough grasp,
while he peered into her face with small, shy eyes. The vice-consul added
with a kind of official formality, "Mr. Orson is the half-nephew of Mr.
Lander," and then Clementina now knew whom it was that he resembled. "He
has come to Venice," continued the vice-consul, "at the request of Mrs.
Lande