o! See!
that's Mrs. Morris, giving some directions to the servant. She wants to
see you, I'm sure."

Stocmar, making a sign to Trover to keep Paten in conversation, hurried
from the room just in time to meet the footman in the corridor. It was,
as the banker supposed, a request that Mr. Stocmar would favor her
with "one minute" at the door. She lifted her veil as he came up to the
window of the carriage, and in her sweetest of accents said,--

[Illustration: 358]

"Can you take a turn with me? I want to speak to you."

He was speedily beside her; and away they drove, the coachman having
received orders to make one turn of the Cascine, and back to the hotel.

"I'm deep in affairs this morning, my dear Mr. Stocmar," began she, as
they drove rapidly along, "and have to bespeak your kind aid to
befriend me. You have not seen Clara yet, and consequently are unable
to pronounce upon her merits in any way, but events haye occurred which
require that she should be immediately provided for. Could you, by any
possibility, assume the charge of her to-day,--this evening? I mean, so
far as to convey her to Milan, and place her at the Conservatoire."

"But, my dear Mrs. Morris, there is an arrangement to be
fulfilled,--there is a preliminary to be settled. No young ladies are
received there without certain stipulations made and complied with."

"All have been provided for; she is admitted as the ward of Mr.
Stocmar. Here is the document, and here the amount of the first
half-year's pension."

"'Clara Stocmar,'" read he. "Well, I must say, madam, this is going
rather far."

"You shall not be ashamed of your niece, sir," said she, "or else I
mistake greatly your feeling for her aunt." Oh! Mr. Stocmar, how is
it that all your behind-scene experiences have not hardened you against
such a glance as that which has now set your heart a-beating within that
embroidered waistcoat? "My dear Mr. Stocmar," she went on, "if the world
has taught me any lesson, it has been to know, by an instinct that never
deceives, the men I can dare to confide in. You had not crossed the
room, where I received you, till I felt you to be such. I said to
myself, 'Here is one who will not want to make love to me, who will not
break out into wild rhapsodies of passion and professions, but who
will at once understand that I need his friendship and his counsel, and
that'"--here she dropped her eyes, and, gently suffering her hand to
touch his, muttered, "and