ore that with a tender renewal of
her allegiance to it. There was nothing in the conversation of the
vice-consul to distract her from this; and she said and did the things
at Venice that she used to do at Middlemount, as nearly as she could; to
make the days of waiting pass more quickly, she tried to serve herself
in ways that scandalized the proud affection of Maddalena. It was not
fit for the signorina to make her bed or sweep her room; she might sew
and knit if she would; but these other things were for servants like
herself. She continued in the faith of Clementina's gentility, and saw
her always as she had seen her first in the brief hour of her social
splendor in Florence. Clementina tried to make her understand how
she lived at Middlemount, but she only brought before Maddalena the
humiliating image of a contadina, which she rejected not only in
Clementina's behalf, but that of Miss Milray. She told her that she was
laughing at her, and she was fixed in her belief when the girl laughed
at that notion. Her poverty she easily conceived of; plenty of signorine
in Italy were poor; and she protected her in it with the duty she did
not divide quite evenly between her and the padrone.

The date which Clementina had fixed for hearing from Hinkle by cable
had long passed, and the time when she first hoped to hear from him by
letter had come and gone. Her address was with the vice-consul as Mrs.
Lander's had been, and he could not be ignorant of her disappointment
when he brought her letters which she said were from home. On the
surface of things it could only be from home that she wished to hear,
but beneath the surface he read an anxiety which mounted with each
gratification of this wish. He had not seen much of the girl while
Hinkle was in Venice; Mrs. Lander had not begun to make such constant
use of him until Hinkle had gone; Mrs. Milray had told him of
Clementina's earlier romance, and it was to Gregory that the vice-consul
related the anxiety which he knew as little in its nature as in its
object.

Clementina never doubted the good faith or constancy of her lover; but
her heart misgave her as to his well-being when it sank at each failure
of the vice-consul to bring her a letter from him. Something must have
happened to him, and it must have been something very serious to keep
him from writing; or there was some mistake of the post-office. The
vice-consul indulged himself in personal inquiries to make sure that the