to remain two days at Florence.
The weather was still very hot, and Florence in the middle of
September is much preferable to Naples.

That night, when the two Miss Spaldings were alone together, they
discussed their fellow-traveller thoroughly. Something, of course,
had been said about him to their uncle the minister, to their aunt
the minister's wife, and to their cousin the secretary of legation.
But travellers will always observe that the dear new friends they
have made on their journey are not interesting to the dear old
friends whom they meet afterwards. There may be some touch of
jealousy in this; and then, though you, the traveller, are fully
aware that there has been something special in the case which has
made this new friendship more peculiar than others that have sprung
up in similar circumstances, fathers and brothers and wives and
sisters do not see it in that light. They suspect, perhaps, that
the new friend was a bagman, or an opera dancer, and think that the
affair need not be made of importance. The American Minister had
cast his eye on Mr. Glascock during that momentary parting, and had
not thought much of Mr. Glascock. "He was certainly a gentleman,"
Caroline had said. "There are a great many English gentlemen," the
minister had replied.

"I thought you would have asked him to call," Olivia said to her
sister. "He did offer."

"I know he did. I heard it."

"Why didn't you tell him he might come?"

"Because we are not in Boston, Livy. It might be the most horrible
thing in the world to do here in Florence; and it may make a
difference, because Uncle Jonas is minister."

"Why should that make a difference? Do you mean that one isn't to see
one's own friends? That must be nonsense."

"But he isn't a friend, Livy."

"It seems to me as if I'd known him for ever. That soft, monotonous
voice, which never became excited and never disagreeable, is as
familiar to me as though I had lived with it all my life."

"I thought him very pleasant."

"Indeed you did, Carry. And he thought you pleasant too. Doesn't it
seem odd? You were mending his glove for him this very afternoon,
just as if he were your brother."

"Why shouldn't I mend his glove?"

"Why not, indeed? He was entitled to have everything mended after
getting us such a good dinner at Bologna. By-the-bye, you never paid
him."

"Yes, I did,--when you were not by."

"I wonder who he is! C. G.! That fine man in the brown coat was his
ser