sappointment he would feel when he heard that
Donna Paltravi was not to have the kind guardianship he had planned for
her, the old doctor would be grieved to the soul when he heard his wife
had lost the youth he had taken from her, but which he had expected to
return in full measure. What made it worse for Jaqui was that he could
administer no comfort with the news. He could not sacrifice himself to
please the old man; promise or no promise, this was impossible. He had
not consented to marry an old lady. Again, from the very bottom of his
heart, did Jaqui wish there never had been a lady in a box.

"At last, when he could put it off no longer, he went to Milan; and
there he found Dr. Paltravi still alive, but very low and very much
troubled because he had not heard from Jaqui. The latter soon perceived
it would be utterly useless to try to deceive or in any way to mislead
the old man, who, although in sad bodily condition, still preserved his
acuteness of mind. Jaqui had to tell him everything, and he began with
Florino and ended with himself, not omitting to tell how the lady had
recognized the situation, and what she had said. Then, fearing the
consequences of this revelation, he put his hand into his leathern bag
to take out a bottle of cordial. But Dr. Paltravi waved away medicine,
and sat up in bed.

"'Did you say,' he cried, 'she is growing old, and that you believe she
will continue to do so until she appears to be the lady of threescore
and ten she really is?'

"'Yes,' said Jaqui; 'that is what I said, and that is what I believe.'

"'Then, by all the holy angels,' cried Dr. Paltravi, jumping out of bed,
'she shall be my wife, and nobody else need concern himself about her.'"

"Hurrah!" cried the Daughter of the House, involuntarily springing to
her feet. "I was so afraid you would not come to that."

"I was bound to come to that, miss," said John Gayther.

"And did they really marry again?" asked the Mistress of the House.

"No," was the reply; "they did not. There was no need of it. The priests
assured them most emphatically that there was not the slightest need of
it. And so they came together again after this long interval, which had
been forty years to him, but which she had lived in forty days. If they
had been together all the time they could not have loved each other more
than they did now. To her eyes, so suddenly matured, there appeared a
handsome, stately old gentleman seventy years of age; to h