pping, were decidedly shabby and only
about six inches square. On the morning of our leavetaking of Nice, St.
Cecilia wanted a "rag" to tie over her bottle of oil, which she carried
with her for her night-tapers, and cast her eyes about for one: she
seized upon the raggedest of the serviettes.

"I don't consider this _stealing_, ma chere," she murmured in apology.
"My bill is enormous! I feel that I've paid for this rag twice over."

So the serviette went with us by sea to Naples. There we were obliged
for a time to occupy the same apartment, and the napkin taken off the
bottle was lying about the room, for it was warm and there was no fire
to throw it in. Tucking it away with soiled linen, it came back from the
laundry clean and white, save one round oil-spot on it, and was thrown
into my trunk along with the refreshed linen; and there it remained
untouched until four months later, when I arrived at Vienna.

At Venice, Cecilia was obliged to return to Paris: she was to rejoin me
a fortnight later at Vienna. Meantime, a young Englishwoman, Kate
Barton, whose acquaintance we had made at Rome, was going to Vienna to
join a party of cousins; and as we were both alone, we arranged to make
the journey together. Kate was one of the merriest of English girls (a
native, however, of Cape Town), a tall, rosy-cheeked blond, with a half
dozen brothers distributed in the British army and provincial
parliaments.

We left Venice at midnight in an Adriatic steamer, and arrived next
morning at Trieste, a town which during our forced stay in it of
forty-eight hours filled my mind with nothing but most disagreeable
souvenirs. Life there was in complete contrast to the quiet, poetic,
graceful existence at Venice, and the change from the one to the other
had been so sudden as to act like a stunning blow. A detention caused by
illness and the loss of a train through the purposed maliciousness of a
hotel-waiter led to two results. One was our sending a telegram to the
proprietor of the W----Hotel in Vienna to inform him of the delay, as
rooms had been engaged for us by a gentleman who was in the habit of
lodging in that hotel when in Vienna, and who before leaving the city
had shown the kind thoughtfulness of sending us a letter of introduction
to the proprietor commending us to his courtesy. The other result was to
bring about an acquaintance with a Prussian, Herr Schwager, which
happened in this wise: Kate, whose wrath was fully aroused