orite.

"Send Julietta to America, then," he protested, but swallowed that
foolishness at Mamma's calm, "To what good?"

To what good, indeed! It would never do to risk the cost of a trip to
America upon Julietta.

Sulkily Papa argued that the cost in any case was prohibitive. But Mamma
had the figures.

"One must invest to receive," she insisted; and when he grumbled, "But
to lose the child?" she broke out, "Am _I_ not losing her?" on a note
that silenced him.

Then she added cheerfully, "But it will be for her own good."

"You want her to marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with
Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft,
light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those
curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a
haze of romance swimming between it and her startled eyes.

America. . . . A rich husband. . . . Travel. . . . Adventure. . . . The
unknown. . . .

It was wonderful. It was unbelievable. . . . It was desperate.

It was a hazard of the sharpest chance.

That knowledge brought a chill of gravity into the hot currents of her
beating heart--a chill that was the cold breath of a terrific
responsibility. She felt herself the hope, the sole resource of her
family. She was the die on which their throw of fortune was to be cast.

Dropping her book she slid down from her chair and crossed to a long
mirror in an old carved frame where a dove was struggling in a falcon's
talons while Cupids drew vain bows, and in the dimmed glass stared in
passionate searching.

She was so childish, so slight looking. She was white--that was the skin
from Mamma--and now she wondered if it were truly a charm. Certainly
Lucia preferred her own olive tints.

And her eyes were so big and dark, like caverns in her face, and her
lips were mere scarlet threads. The beauties she had seen were
warm-colored, high-bosomed, full-lipped.

Her distrust extended even to her coronet of black braids.

Her uncertain youth had no vision of the purity and pride of that
braid-bound head, of the brilliance of the dark eyes against the satin
skin, of the troubling glamour of the red little mouth. In the clear
definition of the delicate features, the arch of the high eyebrows, the
sweep of the shadowy lashes, her childish hope had never dreamed of more
than mere prettiness and now she was torturingly questioning that.

"Practicing your smiles, my dear?" sai