shower of soft
Italian imprecations fell on Mae's ear. She sprang up quickly, "No, no,"
she cried in Italian, "how dare you hurt a harmless boy?" She lifted
her face full toward that of the man who had inspired her wrath, and her
eyes met those of the Piedmontese officer. She blushed scarlet.

"Pardon, a thousand pardons," began he. "It was for your sake,
Signorina. I saw you shake your hand that he should leave you, and I
fancied that the little scamp was troubling the foreign lady."

Mae laughed frankly, although she was greatly confused. The officer and
the beggar boy behind him waited expectantly. "I shook my hand at my
thoughts," she explained. "I did not see the boy. Forgive me, Signor,
for my hasty words."

The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly. He threw a handful of small
coin at the beggar, and bade him go. Then he turned again to Mae. "I am
sorry, Signorina, that your thoughts are sad. I should think they would
all be like sweet smiles." He said this with an indescribable delicacy
and gallantry, as if he half feared to speak to her, but his sympathy
must needs express itself.

Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild mood. She did not realize
what she was doing. She had just broken down all barriers in her mind,
was dead to her old life, and ready to plan for Heaven. And here before
her stood a wonderful, sympathizing, new friend, who spoke in a strange
tongue, lived in a strange land was as far removed from her old-time
people and society as an inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel. She accepted
him under her excitement, as she would have accepted them. No waiting
for an introduction, no formal getting-acquainted talk, no reserve. She
looked into the devoted, interested eyes above her, and said frankly:

"I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome. I thought I would like to
play I was dead, and plan out a Heaven for myself. It should not be in
Rome. And then I suppose I shook my fist."

"Where would your Heaven be?" asked the Piedmontese, falling quickly,
with ready southern sympathy, into her mood. Mae seated herself on the
bench and made room for him at her side.

"Where should it be?" she repeated. "Down among the children of the sun,
all out in the rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of Naples, I think,
with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, it would be in Sorrento that I
should find my heaven."

The officer smiled under his long moustaches. "For three days,--at a
hotel, Signorina."

"No, no