ters. Once or
twice when he looked him up he found him writing, and then the minister
explained that he had promised to "correspond" for an organ of his sect
in the Northwest; but he owned that there was no money in it. He was
otherwise reticent and even furtive in his manner. He did not seem to go
much about the city, but kept to his own room; and if he was writing of
Venice it must have been chiefly from his acquaintance with the little
court into which his windows looked. He affected the vice-consul as
forlorn and helpless, and he pitied him and rather liked him as a
fellow-victim of Mrs. Lander.

One morning Mr. Orson came to see Clementina, and after a brief passage
of opinion upon the weather, he fell into an embarrassed silence from
which he pulled himself at last with a visible effort. "I hardly know how
to lay before you what I have to say, Miss Claxon," he began, "and I must
ask you to put the best construction upon it. I have never been reduced
to a similar distress before. You would naturally think that I would turn
to the vice-consul, on such an occasion; but I feel, through our relation
to the--to Mrs. Lander--ah--somewhat more at home with you."

He stopped, as if he wished to be asked his business, and she entreated
him, "Why, what is it, Mr. Osson? Is there something I can do? There
isn't anything I wouldn't!"

A gleam, watery and faint, which still could not be quite winked away,
came into his small eyes. "Why, the fact is, could you--ah--advance me
about five dollars?"

"Why, Mr. Orson!" she began, and he seemed to think she wished to
withdraw her offer of help, for he interposed.

"I will repay it as soon as I get an expected remittance from home. I
came out on the invitation of Mrs. Lander, and as her guest, and I
supposed--"

"Oh, don't say a wo'd!" cried Clementina, but now that he had begun he
was powerless to stop.

"I would not ask, but my landlady has pressed me for her rent--I suppose
she needs it--and I have been reduced to the last copper--"

The girl whose eyes the tears of self pity so rarely visited, broke into
a sob that seemed to surprise her visitor. But she checked herself as
with a quick inspiration: "Have you been to breakfast?"

"Well--ah--not this morning," Mr. Orson admitted, as if to imply that
having breakfasted some other morning might be supposed to serve the
purpose.

She left him and ran to the door. "Maddalena, Maddalena!" she called; and
Maddalena responded