t if it is not obligatory to take the train, we would pray your
Excellency's permission to save the money. We should like to save the
money, to give it to the father. The father is very poor. Fifty lire is
so much."

This time it was Peter who looked for counsel to the Duchessa.

Her eyes, still bright with tears, responded, "Let them do as they
will."

"No, it is not obligatory--it is only recommended," he said to the boy,
with a smile that he could n't help. "Do as you will. But if I were you,
I should spare my poor little feet."

"Mille grazie, Eccellenze," the boy said, with a final sweep of his
tattered hat. He ran back to his sister; and next moment they were
walking resolutely on, westward, "into the great red light."

The Duchessa and Peter were silent for a while, looking after them.

They dwindled to dots in the distance, and then, where the road turned,
disappeared.

At last the Duchessa spoke--but almost as if speaking to herself.

"There, Felix Wildmay, you writer of tales, is a subject made to your
hand," she said.

We may guess whether Peter was startled. Was it possible that she had
found him out? A sound, confused, embarrassed, something composite,
between an oh and ayes, seemed to expire in his throat.

But the Duchessa did n't appear to heed it.

"Don't you think it would be a touching episode for your friend to write
a story round?" she asked.

We may guess whether he was relieved.

"Oh--oh, yes," he agreed, with the precipitancy of a man who, in his
relief, would agree to anything.

"Have you ever seen such courage?" she went on. "The wonderful babies!
Fancy fifteen days, fifteen days and nights, alone, unprotected, on the
highway, those poor little atoms! Down in their hearts they are really
filled with terror. Who would n't be, with such a journey before him?
But how finely they concealed it, mastered it! Oh, I hope they won't be
robbed. God help them--God help them!"

"God help them, indeed," said Peter.

"And the little girl, with her medal of the Immaculate Conception. The
father, after all, can hardly be the brute one might suspect, since he
has given them a religious education. Oh, I am sure, I am sure, it was
the Blessed Virgin herself who sent us across their path, in answer to
that poor little creature's prayers."

"Yes," said Peter, ambiguously perhaps. But he liked the way in which
she united him to herself in the pronoun.

"Which, of course," she added, smiling