hild; and yet, how can I
take the boy from her?"

"Of course not. He's only a baby."

"And yet all this is brought on me solely by her obstinacy. God
knows, however, I don't want to say a word against her. People choose
to say that I am to blame, and they may say so for me. Nothing that
any one may say can add anything to the weight that I have to bear."
Then they walked to the top of the mountain in silence, and in due
time were picked up by their proper shepherd and carried down to Susa
at a pace that would give an English coachman a concussion of the
brain.

Why passengers for Turin, who reach Susa dusty, tired, and sleepy,
should be detained at that place for an hour and a half instead of
being forwarded to their beds in the great city, is never made very
apparent. All travelling officials on the continent of Europe are
very slow in their manipulation of luggage; but as they are equally
correct we will find the excuse for their tardiness in the latter
quality. The hour and a half, however, is a necessity, and it is very
grievous. On this occasion the two Miss Spaldings ate their supper,
and the two gentlemen waited on them. The ladies had learned to
regard at any rate Mr. Glascock as their own property, and received
his services, graciously indeed, but quite as a matter of course.
When he was sent from their peculiar corner of the big, dirty
refreshment room to the supper-table to fetch an apple, and then
desired to change it because the one which he had brought was
spotted, he rather liked it. And when he sat down with his knees
near to theirs, actually trying to eat a large Italian apple himself
simply because they had eaten one, and discussed with them the
passage over the Mont Cenis, he began to think that Susa was, after
all, a place in which an hour and a half might be whiled away without
much cause for complaint.

"We only stay one night at Turin," said Caroline Spalding, the elder.

"And we shall have to start at ten,--to get through to Florence
to-morrow," said Olivia, the younger. "Isn't it cruel, wasting all
this time when we might be in bed?"

"It is not for me to complain of the cruelty," said Mr. Glascock.

"We should have fared infinitely worse if we hadn't met you," said
Caroline Spalding.

"But our republican simplicity won't allow us to assert that even
your society is better than going to bed, after a journey of thirty
hours," said Olivia.

In the meantime Trevelyan was roaming about