s thinking all the time how proud I should
have been, and how much more fortunate he would have been, had you
been standing there instead of that American young woman." As she
said this Lady Rowley burst into tears, and Nora could only answer
her mother by embracing her. They were alone together, their party
having been too large for one carriage, and Sir Marmaduke having
taken his two younger daughters. "Of course I feel it," said Lady
Rowley, through her tears. "It would have been such a position for
my child! And that young man,--without a shilling in the world; and
writing in that way, just for bare bread!" Nora had nothing more
to say. A feeling that in herself would have been base, was simply
affectionate and maternal in her mother. It was impossible that she
should make her mother see it as she saw it.

There was but one intervening day and then the Rowleys returned to
England. There had been, as it were, a tacit agreement among them
that, in spite of all their troubles, their holiday should be a
holiday up to the time of the Glascock marriage. Then must commence
at once the stern necessity of their return home,--home, not only
to England, but to those antipodean islands from which it was
too probable that some of them might never come back. And the
difficulties in their way seemed to be almost insuperable. First
of all there was to be the parting from Emily Trevelyan. She had
determined to remain in Florence, and had written to her husband
saying that she would do so, and declaring her willingness to go out
to him, or to receive him in Florence at any time and in any manner
that he might appoint. She had taken this as a first step, intending
to go to Casalunga very shortly, even though she should receive
no answer from him. The parting between her and her mother and
father and sisters was very bitter. Sir Marmaduke, as he had become
estranged from Nora, had grown to be more and more gentle and loving
with his elder daughter, and was nearly overcome at the idea of
leaving her in a strange land, with a husband near her, mad, and yet
not within her custody. But he could do nothing,--could hardly say a
word,--toward opposing her. Though her husband was mad, he supplied
her with the means of living; and when she said that it was her duty
to be near him, her father could not deny it. The parting came. "I
will return to you the moment you send to me," were Nora's last words
to her sister. "I don't suppose I shall send