th
enthusiasm. I really like my crew--and I don't think it is vain in me
to believe that they return the feeling, from the sailing-master to the
cabin-boy. My future life, after all that has passed, is likely to be a
roving life, unless--No! I may think sometimes of that happier prospect,
but I had better not put my thoughts into words. I have a fine vessel;
I have plenty of money; and I like the sea. There are three good reasons
for buying the yacht.

Returning to Rome in the evening, I found waiting for me a letter from
Stella.

She writes (immediately on the receipt of my telegram) to make a similar
request to the request addressed to me by her mother. Now that I am at
Rome, she too wants to hear news of a Jesuit priest. He is absent on
a foreign mission, and his name is Penrose. "You shall hear what
obligations I owe to his kindness," she writes, "when we meet. In
the meantime, I will only say that he is the exact opposite of Father
Benwell, and that I should be the most ungrateful of women if I did not
feel the truest interest in his welfare."

This is strange, and, to my mind, not satisfactory. Who is Penrose? and
what has he done to deserve such strong expressions of gratitude? If
anybody had told me that Stella could make a friend of a Jesuit, I
am afraid I should have returned a rude answer. Well, I must wait for
further enlightenment, and apply to the landlord's nephew once more.

March 7.--There is small prospect, I fear, of my being able to
appreciate the merits of Mr. Penrose by personal experience. He is
thousands of miles away from Europe, and he is in a situation of peril,
which makes the chance of his safe return doubtful in the last degree.

The Mission to which he is attached was originally destined to find its
field of work in Central America. Rumors of more fighting to come,
in that revolutionary part of the world, reached Rome before the
missionaries had sailed from the port of Leghorn. Under these
discouraging circumstances, the priestly authorities changed the
destination of the Mission to the territory of Arizona, bordering on New
Mexico, and recently purchased by the United States. Here, in the valley
of Santa Cruz, the Jesuits had first attempted the conversion of
the Indian tribes two hundred years since, and had failed. Their
mission-house and chapel are now a heap of ruins, and the ferocious
Apache Indians keep the fertile valley a solitude by the mere terror
of their name. To this il