ing would have understood what this proposal
really meant. Mrs. Gallilee sanctioned it as composedly as if Ovid and
Carmina had been brother and sister. "I wish I could go with you," she
said, "but my household affairs fill my morning. And there is a lecture
this afternoon, which I cannot possibly lose. I don't know, Carmina,
whether you are interested in these things. We are to have the
apparatus, which illustrates the conversion of radiant energy into
sonorous vibrations. Have you ever heard, my dear, of the Diathermancy
of Ebonite? Not in your way, perhaps?"

Carmina looked as unintelligent as Zo herself. Mrs. Gallilee's
science seemed to frighten her. The Diathermancy of Ebonite, by some
incomprehensible process, drove her bewildered mind back on her old
companion. "I want to give Teresa a little pleasure before we part," she
said timidly; "may she go with us?"

"Of course!" cried Mrs. Gallilee. "And, now I think of it, why shouldn't
the children have a little pleasure too? I will give them a holiday.
Don't be alarmed, Ovid; Miss Minerva will look after them. In the
meantime, Carmina, tell your good old friend to get ready."

Carmina hastened away, and so helped Mrs. Gallilee to the immediate
object which she had in view--a private interview with her son.

Ovid anticipated a searching inquiry into the motives which had led
him to give up the sea voyage. His mother was far too clever a woman to
waste her time in that way. Her first words told him that his motive was
as plainly revealed to her as the sunlight shining in at the window.

"That's a charming girl," she said, when Carmina closed the door behind
her. "Modest and natural--quite the sort of girl, Ovid, to attract a
clever man like you."

Ovid was completely taken by surprise, and owned it by his silence. Mrs.
Gallilee went on in a tone of innocent maternal pleasantry.

"You know you began young," she said; "your first love was that poor
little wizen girl of Lady Northlake's who died. Child's play, you will
tell me, and nothing more. But, my dear, I am afraid I shall require
some persuasion, before I quite sympathize with this new--what shall I
call it?--infatuation is too hard a word, and 'fancy' means nothing. We
will leave it a blank. Marriages of cousins are debatable marriages,
to say the least of them; and Protestant fathers and Papist mothers do
occasionally involve difficulties with children. Not that I say, No. Far
from it. But if this is to go