e! He dies for me!"

Presently she found Ernest.

"Ernest, you say you will do as we wish. I must go home directly, and
without you. I shall take a vessel from Leghorn. Harry and I planned my
going home that way. It is less expensive, more direct; and I confess I
do not feel so strong about going home alone as I did in coming. My head
is full of thoughts, and I could not take care of myself; but I would
rather go alone. You will stay here, and we will write to you, or Harry
will come for you. But you must take care of yourself; you must not
starve yourself."

Her Italian friends accompanied her to the vessel and bade her good-bye,
Ernest was with them. She wrote to Harry the day she sailed. The vessel
looked comfortable enough; it was well-laden, and in its hold was the
marble statue of a great man,--great in worth as well as in weight.

A few weeks after Violet left, Harry appeared in Florence. He had just
missed her letter.

"I came to bring you both home," he said. "I finished my contract
successfully, and gave myself this little vacation."

Harry was dismayed to find that Violet was gone.

"But we will return directly, and arrive in time, perhaps, to greet her
as she gets home."

Monica urged,--

"But you must not keep him long. See how much he has done in Italy! You
will see he must come back again."

"Monsieur" had been for his statue, and was to send for it the next day,
more than satisfied with it.

Harry was astonished.

"Five hundred dollars! It would take me long enough to work that out!
Ah, Ernest, your hammering is worth more than mine!"

Harry's surprise was not merely for the money earned. When he saw the
white marble figure, which brought into the poor room where it stood
grandeur and riches and life and grace, he wondered still more.

"I see now," he said. "You spent your life on this. No wonder you were
starving when your spirit was putting itself into this mould!"

Harry was in a hurry to return. Ernest's little affairs were quickly
settled. Harry was surprised to find Italian life was so like home life
in this one thing: he had been treated so kindly, just as he would have
been in his own home,--just as Mrs. Schroder, and even Aunt Martha,
would have treated a poor Italian stranger who had sought a lodging in
their house; they had welcomed Harry with the same warmth and feeling
with which they had all along cared for Ernest. This was something that
Harry knew how to translate.

"