ason would be hard to think, unless one
had a sharp scent for what goes on under one's nose--Charlie
interrupted, to introduce as a sort of parenthesis, 'Mrs. Hawthorne,
whose real name, by the way, is Helen Barton.' The others were naturally
taken aback, except Madame Sartorio, who could not quite disguise a
cat-smile. For a moment none of us knew what to say, and Charlie went
on, with his air of knowing such a lot more than anybody else--

"'Yes. It seems that all winter we have been warming in our bosom, so to
speak, the heroine of a _cause celebre_ at a place called Colorado
in America.'"

"That was enough for me. I stopped him.

"'Don't say any more, Charlie. All I wish to know about Mrs. Hawthorne
is what she cares to tell me herself,' and I insisted that the
conversation should return to other things.

"When I got home I told mother, and she repeated to me what you, Aurora,
confided to her when we first knew you. We told father, and when Doctor
Bewick came that evening to say good-by we consulted, and here in this
newspaper you have the result, put into Italian journalese by Carlo
Guerra, whom we called in to aid us. He likes you so much, Aurora; did
you know it? He met you at Antonia's. So there you have the whole story.
I'm bitterly ashamed of Charlie, my dear, and I'm sorry about him, too.
One never looked upon him as a particularly fine fellow, still, one
liked him. He had never done anything that disqualified him for a sort
of liking, and we've all grown up together." Leslie wrinkled her
forehead in puzzlement. "It's curious, somehow, to think of him, who, we
have said so often, has no real inside, as being sufficiently under the
dominion of a passion to care to please his lady by offering up you, who
have, after all, been to him a source of a good many pleasures, with
your open house, invitations to dinner, and so on. I don't quite
understand it."

"Never mind about him!" Aurora flicked him aside. "I don't care. And you
say Tom helped. And he never told me, or wrote me a word about it. I had
a letter from him this morning. Well, well. You certainly did make a
good-sounding story of it, among you. And the main facts are true, far
as they go; I can't say they aren't. But, oh, my dear Leslie, there was
a lot more to it than that. I've got to tell you, so's not to feel like
a fraud. You're so sharp; you know me pretty well by this time, and I
guess you don't suppose in me any of those awfully 'fine feelin'