r
that; but I can tell from my own feelings how she must suffer. I have
you, Owen," she said tenderly, "but Lily has _nobody_. She has gone
through this Ehrhardt business so well that I think we ought to do all
we can to divert her mind."

"Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our position,--the nature
of the responsibility we have assumed. How are we possibly, here in
Venice, to divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the parties and
picnics of Patmos?"

"We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. Elmore.

"Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no Italian there. She
will hear nothing but English from the travellers and bad French from
the waiters; while at our restaurant--"

"Pshaw!" cried Mrs. Elmore, "what does Lily care for Italian? I'm sure
_I_ never want to hear another word of it."

At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave way; he went to the
Danieli the next morning, and arranged to begin dining there that day.
There is no denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in prospect of
the change that even the sight of the pillar to which Foscarini was
hanged head downwards for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She
made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly an impression at the
table d'hote when she sat down there. Elmore had found places opposite
an elderly lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, but of
not very English effect otherwise, who bowed to Lily in acknowledgment
of some former meeting. The old lady said, "So you've reached Venice at
last? I'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point of the
progress thither she had been privy to anxieties of Lily about arriving
at her destination; and, in fact, they had been in the same hotels at
Marseilles and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but he looked at
Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed to take his eyes from her only
when she glanced at him; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate
and blushed. When they left the table, he made haste to join the Elmores
in the reading-room, where he contrived, with creditable skill, to get
Lily apart from them for the examination of an illustrated newspaper, at
which neither of them looked; they remained chatting and laughing over
it in entire irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, "Herbert,
Herbert! I am ready to go now," upon which he did not seem at all so,
but went submissively.

"Who are those people, Lily?" asked Mrs. Elmo