ay to Sorrento. I would
dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet flowers and wreathe his big
hat and kiss his brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then we would
run along by the bay and laugh at you stiff, grand world's folks as we
skipped past you."

"We shall know where to look for you, if ever you do disappear," said
Norman Mann.

"But, my dear Mae," added Albert, "though this is amusing, it is utterly
useless."

"Amusing things always are," said Mae.

"The question is, shall we or shall we not go to Rome for the winter?"

"Certainly, by all means, and if I don't like it, I'll run away to
Sorrento," and Mae shook her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a
fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a proud brotherly pleasure
in this saucy young woman, and that gave Norman Mann a sort of feeling
he had had a good deal of late, a feeling hard to define, though we have
all known it, a delicious concoction of pleasure and pain. His eyes were
fixed on Mae, now. "What is it?" she asked. "You will like Rome, I am
sure." "No, I never like what I think I shall not."

"It might save some trouble, then, if I ask you now if you expect to
like me," said he, in a lower tone. "Why certainly, I do like you very
much," she replied, honestly. "What a stupid question," he thinks,
vexedly. "Why did I tell him I liked him?" she thinks, blushingly. So
the waves of anxiety and doubt begin to swell in these two hearts as
the outside waves beat with a truer sea-motion momently against the
steamer's side.

Between days of sea-sickness come delightful intervals of calm sea and
fresh breezes, when the party fly to the hurricane deck to get the very
quintessence of life on the ocean wave. One morning Mrs. Jerrold and
Edith were sitting there alone, with rugs and all sorts of head devices
in soft wools and flannels, and books and a basket of fruit. The matron
of the party was a tall, fine-looking woman, a good type of genuine
New England stock softened by city breeding. New Englanders are so many
propositions from Euclid, full of right angles and straight lines, but
easy living and the dressmaker's art combine to turn the corners gently.
Edith was like her mother, but softened by a touch of warm Dutch blood.
She was tall, almost stately, with a good deal of American style, which
at that time happened to be straight and slender. She was naturally
reserved, but four years of boarding-school life had enriched her store
of adjectives