me the tears flowed unheeded. Of
what use is pride, unless it be observed by others? She missed some one,
a frank, merry, kind-hearted some one; and it was balm to her heart to
admit it at last. Had he appeared to her at that moment, she must have
fallen gratefully into his arms.

And there were so many things she could not understand. Why should La
Signorina always go veiled? Why should she hide her splendid beauty?
Where did she disappear so mysteriously in the daytime? And those
sapphires, and diamonds, and emeralds? Why live here, with such a
fortune hanging round her neck? Kitty forgot that, for the sake of
sentiment, one will sometimes eat a crust when one might dine like a
prince.

"Kitty?" The voice came from the doorway. Kitty was startled for a
moment, but it was only La Signorina. Kitty furtively wiped her eyes.

"I am over here by the window. The moon was so bright I did not light
the lamp."

La Signorina moved with light step to the window, bent and caught
Kitty's face between her hands and turned it firmly toward the moon.

"You have been crying, _cara_!"

"I am very lonely," said Kitty.

"You poor little homeless bird!" La Signorina seized Kitty impulsively
in her arms. "If I were not--" She hesitated.

"If you were not?"

"If I were not poor, but rich instead, I'd take you to one of the
fashionable hotels. You are out of place here, in this rambling old
ruin."

"Not half so much as you are," Kitty replied.

"I am never out of place. I can live comfortably in the fields with the
peasants, in cities, in extravagant hotels. It is the mind, my dear, not
the body. My mind is always at one height; where the body is does not
matter much."

There was a subtle hauteur in the voice; it subdued Kitty's
inquisitiveness. And no other woman had, till recently, accomplished
this feat. Kitty was proud, but there was something in her companion
that she recognized but could not express in words.

"Come!" said the older woman. "I myself am lonely and desperate
to-night. I am going to throw away a precious bit of silver on a
gondolier. We haven't been out three times together since we arrived.
Perhaps it would have been better had we all remained in Rome; but there
I could not have helped you. The band plays in the Piazza to-night. They
are going to play light opera, and it will tone us both up a bit. More
than that, we'll have coffee at Florian's, if we can find a table.
To-morrow we may have to do withou