llent qualities, but,
somehow, in the hurry of her benevolence, she forgot patience! I suppose
one can't have everything!"

While he thus mused and speculated, the boat swept smoothly over the
lake, and Onofrio, not remarking the little attention Calvert vouchsafed
to him, went on talking of "I Grangeri" as the most interesting subject
he could think of. At last Calvert's notice was drawn to his words by
hearing how the old lady had agreed to take the villa for a year, with
the power of continuing to reside there longer if she were so minded.

The compact had been made only the day before, after Calvert had started
for Milan, evidently--to his thinking--showing that it had been done
with reference to something in Loyd's last letter. "Strange that she
did not consult me upon it," thought he; "I who have been her chief
counsellor on everything. Perhaps the lease of my confidence has
expired. But how does it matter? A few hours more, and all these people
shall be no more to me than the lazy cloud that is hanging about the
mountain-top. They may live or die, or marry or mourn, and all be as
nothing to me--as if I had never met them. And what shall _I_ be to
_them_, I wonder?" cried he, with a bitter laugh; "a very dreadful
dream, I suppose; something like the memory of a shipwreck, or a fire
from which they escaped without any consciousness of the means that
rescued them! A horrid nightmare whose terrors always come back in days
of depression and illness. At all events, I shall not be 'poor Calvert,'
'that much to be pitied creature, who really had some good in him.' No,
I shall certainly be spared all commiseration of that kind, and
they'll no more recur willingly to my memory than they'll celebrate the
anniversary of some day that brought them shame and misfortune.

"Now then, for my positively last appearance in my present line of
character! And yonder I see the old dame on the look-out for me; she
certainly has some object in meeting me before her nieces shall know
it--Land me in that nook there, Onofrio, and wait for me."

"I have been very impatient for your coming," said she, as he stepped on
shore; "I have so much to say to you; but, first of all, read this. It
is from the vicar."

The letter was not more than a few lines, and to this purport: he was
about to quit the home he had lived in for more than thirty years, and
was so overwhelmed with sorrow and distress, that he really could not
address his thoughts t