been at me again about my pension,--_his_ doing, I'm sure,"
muttered he,--"asking for a return of services, and such-like rubbish."

"Don't let them worry you, papa; they dare not push you to publicity.
It's like a divorce case, where one of the parties, being respectable,
must submit to any terms imposed."

"Well, that's my own view of it, dear; and so I said, 'Consult the
secret instructions to the Under-Secretary for Ireland for an account of
services rendered by N. H.'"

"You 'll hear no more of it," said she, flippantly. "What of Ludlow?
Where is he?"

"He's here. Don't you know that?"

"Here! Do you mean in Florence?"

"Yes; he came with Stocmar. They are at the same hotel."

"I declare I half suspected it," said she, with a sort of bitter laugh.
"Oh, the cunning Mr. Stocmar, that must needs deceive me!"

"And you have seen him?"

"Yes; I settled about his taking Clara away with him. I want to get rid
of her,--I mean altogether,--and Stocmar is exactly the person to manage
these little incidents of the white slave-market But," added she, with
some irritation, "that was no reason why you should dupe _me_, my good
Mr. Stocmar! particularly at the moment when I had poured all my sorrows
into your confiding breast!"

"He's a very deep fellow, they tell me."

"No, papa, he is not He has that amount of calculation--that putting
this, that, and t' other together, and seeing what they mean--which all
Jews have; but he makes the same blunder that men of small craft are
always making. He is eternally on the search after motives, just as if
fifteen out of every twenty things in this life are not done without any
motive at all!"

"Only in Ireland, Loo,--only in Ireland."

"Nay, papa, in Ireland they do the full twenty," said she, laughing.
"But what has brought Ludlow here? He has certainly not come without a
motive."

"To use some coercion over you, I suspect."

"Probably enough. Those weary letters,--those weary letters!" sighed
she. "Oh, papa dear,--you who were always a man of a clear head and a
subtle brain,--how did you fall into the silly mistake of having your
daughter taught to write? Our nursery-books are crammed with cautious
injunctions,--'Don't play with fire,' &c,--and of the real peril of all
perils not a word of warning is uttered, and nobody says, 'Avoid the
inkstand.'"

"How could you have fallen into such a blunder?" said he, half
peevishly.

"I gave rash pledges, papa, just as a ban