a city was large and luxurious. From one end
of the house there projected a covered terrace, or loggia, in which
there were chairs and tables, sculptured ornaments, busts, and old
monumental relics let into the wall in profusion. It was half chamber
and half garden,--such an adjunct to a house as in our climate would
give only an idea of cold, rheumatism, and a false romance, but under
an Italian sky, is a luxury daily to be enjoyed during most months of
the year. Here Mr. Glascock and Caroline had passed many hours,--and
here they were now seated, late in the evening, while all others of
the family were away. As far as regarded the rooms occupied by the
American Minister, they had the house and garden to themselves, and
there never could come a time more appropriate for the saying of a
thing difficult to be said. Mr. Glascock had heard from his father's
physician, and had said that it was nearly certain now that he
need not go down to Naples again before his marriage. Caroline was
trembling, not knowing how to speak, not knowing how to begin;--but
resolved that the thing should be done. "He will never know you,
Carry," said Mr. Glascock. "It is, perhaps, hardly a sorrow to me,
but it is a regret."

"It would have been a sorrow perhaps to him had he been able to know
me," said she, taking the opportunity of rushing at her subject.

"Why so? Of all human beings he was the softest-hearted."

"Not softer-hearted than you, Charles. But soft hearts have to be
hardened."

"What do you mean? Am I becoming obdurate?"

"I am, Charles," she said. "I have got something to say to you. What
will your uncles and aunts and your mother's relations say of me when
they see me at Monkhams?"

"They will swear to me that you are charming; and then,--when my back
is turned,--they'll pick you to pieces a little among themselves. I
believe that is the way of the world, and I don't suppose that we are
to do better than others."

"And if you had married an English girl, a Lady Augusta
Somebody,--would they pick her to pieces?"

"I guess they would, as you say."

"Just the same?"

"I don't think anybody escapes, as far as I can see. But that won't
prevent their becoming your bosom friends in a few weeks time."

"No one will say that you have been wrong to marry an American girl?"

"Now, Carry, what is the meaning of all this?"

"Do you know any man in your position who ever did marry an American
girl;--any man of your rank in Eng