not take some refreshment.

But his "Eccellenza" would do neither; sooth to say, he was not in the
best of humors, and curtly said, "No, I want nothing but post-horses to
get out of this wretched place."

"Is n't that like an Englishman?" said a voice from the vetturino
carriage to some one beside him.

"But I know him," cried the other, leaping out. "It's the new Viscount
Lackington." And with this he approached the carriage, and respectfully
removing his hat, said, "How d'ye do, my Lord?"

"Ah, Spicer! you here?" said Beecher, half haughtily. "Off to England, I
suppose?"

"No, my Lord, I 'm bound for Rome."

"So are we, too. Lady Lackington and myself," added be, correcting at
once a familiar sort of a glance that Spicer found time to bestow upon
Lizzy. "Do you happen to know if Lady Georgina is there?"

"Yes, my Lord, at the Palazzo Gondi, on the Pintian;" and here Spicer
threw into his look an expression of respectful homage to her Ladyship.

"Palazzo Gondi; will you try and remember that address?" said Beecher
to his wife. And then, waving his hand to Spicer, he added,
"Good-bye,--meet you at Rome some of these days," and was gone.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AT ROME

In a small and not very comfortably furnished room looking out upon
the Pintian Hill at Rome, two ladies were seated, working,--one in
deep mourning, whose freshness indicated a recent loss; the other in
a strangely fashioned robe of black silk, whose deep cape and rigid
absence of ornament recalled something of the cloister. The first was
the widowed Viscountess Lackington; the second the Lady Grace Twining,
a recent convert to Rome, and now on her way to some ecclesiastical
preferment in the Church, either as "Chanoinesse," or something equally
desirable. Lady Lackington looked ill and harassed; there were not on
her face any traces of deep sorrow or affliction, but the painful marks
of much thought. It was the expression of one who had gone through a
season of trial wherein she had to meet events and personages all
new and strange to her. It was only during the last few days of Lord
Lackington's illness that she learned the fact of a contested claim
to the title, but, brief as was the time, every post brought a mass of
letters bearing on this painful topic. While the lawyers, therefore,
showered their unpleasant and discouraging tidings, there was nothing
to be heard of Beecher; none knew where he was, or how a letter was
to reach him. All h