himself that she was a simple,
easily managed person, and that a few deferential protestations would
take the edge from her displeasure. "Yes," he began; "your daughter has
kindly allowed me the honor of being her guide."

Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of
appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther,
gently humming to herself. "I presume you will go in the cars," said her
mother.

"Yes, or in the boat," said Winterbourne.

"Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. Miller rejoined. "I have never
been to that castle."

"It is a pity you shouldn't go," said Winterbourne, beginning to feel
reassured as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find
that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her daughter.

"We've been thinking ever so much about going," she pursued; "but it
seems as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy--she wants to go round. But
there's a lady here--I don't know her name--she says she shouldn't think
we'd want to go to see castles HERE; she should think we'd want to wait
till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there,"
continued Mrs. Miller with an air of increasing confidence. "Of course
we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England,"
she presently added.

"Ah yes! in England there are beautiful castles," said Winterbourne.
"But Chillon here, is very well worth seeing."

"Well, if Daisy feels up to it--" said Mrs. Miller, in a tone
impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise. "It seems
as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake."

"Oh, I think she'll enjoy it!" Winterbourne declared. And he desired
more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege
of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still strolling along
in front of them, softly vocalizing. "You are not disposed, madam," he
inquired, "to undertake it yourself?"

Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and then walked forward
in silence. Then--"I guess she had better go alone," she said simply.
Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type of
maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves in the
forefront of social intercourse in the dark old city at the other end of
the lake. But his meditations were interrupted by hearing his name very
distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Miller's unprotected daughter.

"Mr. Winterbourne!" murmured Daisy.

"M