you in
the 'Morning Post' already. And will you continue to live in Italy? Or
will you come back to England?"

"Oh, my good Kate, my sweet Kate, my incorrigible Kate, what an
extravagantly silly Kate you can be when the mood takes you," Beatrice
laughed.

"Kate me as many Kates as you like, the man is really not bad-looking.
He has a nice lithe springy figure, and a clean complexion, and an open
brow. And if there's a suggestion of superciliousness in the tilt of his
nose, of scepticism in the twirl of his moustaches, and of obstinacy in
the squareness of his chin--ma foi, you must take the bitter with the
sweet. Besides, he has decent hair, and plenty of it--he'll not go bald.
And he dresses well, and wears his clothes with an air. In short, you'll
make a very handsome couple. Anyhow, when your family are gathered
round the evening lamp to-night, I 'll stake my fortune on it, but I
can foretell the name of the book they'll find Trixie Belfont reading,"
laughed Mrs. O'Donovan Florence.

For a few minutes, after her friend had left her, Beatrice sat still,
her head resting on her hand, and gazed with fixed eyes at Monte
Sfiorito. Then she rose, and walked briskly backwards and forwards, for
a while, up and down the terrace. Presently she came to a standstill,
and leaning on the balustrade, while one of her feet kept lightly
tapping the pavement, looked off again towards the mountain.

The prospect was well worth her attention, with its blue and green and
gold, its wood and water, its misty-blushing snows, its spaciousness
and its atmosphere. In the sky a million fluffy little cloudlets floated
like a flock of fantastic birds, with mother-of-pearl tinted plumage.
The shadows were lengthening now. The sunshine glanced from the smooth
surface of the lake as from burnished metal, and falling on the coloured
sails of the fishing-boats, made them gleam like sails of crimson silk.
But I wonder how much of this Beatrice really saw.

She plucked an oleander from one of the tall marble urns set along the
balustrade, and pressed the pink blossom against her face, and, closing
her eyes, breathed in its perfume; then, absent-minded, she let it drop,
over the terrace, upon the path below.

"It's impossible," she said suddenly, aloud. At last she went into the
house, and up to her rose-and-white retiring-room. There she took a book
from the table, and sank into a deep easy-chair, and began to turn the
pages.

But when, by a