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with the way the plot thickened on the Lake of Como. I was watching Bellagio slip past among the trees on the left shore and wondering whether we could hear the nightingales if it were not for the steamer's engines--which was particularly unlikely as it was the middle of the afternoon--and thinking about the trifles that would sometimes divide lives plainly intended to mingle. Mere enunciation, for example, was a thing one could so soon become reaccustomed to; already momma had ceased to congratulate me on my broad a's, and I could not help the inference that my conversation was again unobtrusively Chicagoan. It was frustrating, too, that I had no way of finding out how much poppa knew, and extremely irritating to think that he knew anything. He was sitting near me as I mused, immersed in the American mail, while momma and his Aunt Caroline insensibly glided towards intimacy again on two wicker chairs close by. Mr. Mafferton was counting the luggage somewhere; he was never happy on a steamer until he had done that; and Isabel was being fervently apologised to by Dicky on the other side of the deck. I hoped she was taking it in the proper spirit. I had the terms all ready in which _I_ should accept an apology, if it were ever offered to me. [Illustration: Fervent apologies.] "Now, I must not put off any longer telling you how delighted I am at your dear Mamie's re-engagement." The statement reached us all, though it was intended for momma only. Even Mrs. Portheris's more amiable accents had a quality which penetrated far, with a suggestion of whiskers. I looked again languidly at Bellagio, but not until I had observed a rapid glance between my parents, recommending each other not to be taken by surprise. "Has she confided in you?" inquired momma. "No--no. I heard it in a roundabout way. You must be very pleased, dear Augusta. Such an advantage that they have known each other all their lives!" Poppa looked guardedly round at me, but by this time I was asleep in my camp chair, the air was so balmily cool after our hot rattle to Como. "How _did_ you hear?" he demanded, coming straight to the point, while momma struggled after tentative uncertainties. "Oh, a little bird, a little bird--who had it from them both! And much better, I said when I heard it, that she should marry one of her own country-people. American girls nowadays will so often be content with nothing less than an Englishman!" "So far as tha
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