the 3d in the City of Timbuctoo, she will be
at Queenstown on the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from her
by Wednesday saying when she will be at Genoa. That's as far as the
Mortons can bring her, and there's where we must meet her."

"Meet her in Genoa! How?"

"By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if this were the
simplest thing in the world. "I have never seen Genoa."

Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. His wife continued: "I
needn't take anything. Merely run on, and right back."

"When must we go?" he asked.

"I don't know yet; but we shall have a letter to-morrow. Don't worry on
my account, Owen. Her coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give
me something to do and to think about, and it will be a pleasure all the
time to know that it's for Susy Stevens. And I shall like the
companionship."

Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had not occurred to him
before that with his company she could desire any other companionship.
He desired none but hers, and when he was about his work he often
thought of her. He supposed that at these moments she thought of him,
and found society, as he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous
or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment of the approaching
visit from Susy Stevens's sister had not been enthusiastic, but a spark
had kindled his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as the
days went by. He found a charm in the thought of having this fresh young
life here in his charge, and of teaching the girl to live into the great
and beautiful history of the city: there was still much of the
school-master in him, and he intended to make her sojourn an education
to her; and as a literary man he hoped for novel effects from her mind
upon material which he was above all trying to set in a new light before
himself.

When the time had arrived for them to go and meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa,
he was more than reconciled to the necessity. But at the last moment,
Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What these attacks were I find
myself unable to specify, but as every lady has an old attack of some
kind, I may safely leave their precise nature to conjecture. It is
enough that they were of a nervous character, that they were accompanied
with headache, and that they prostrated her for several days. During
their continuance she required the active sympathy and constant presence
of her husband, whose devotion was then ex