sked her every evening whether she had sent her letter yet,
exclaimed with delight when the answer at last was yes, and threw her
arms round her. "Now we shall be completely happy!" cried the
enthusiastic Lotty.

But nothing seemed less certain to Rose, and her expression
became more and more the expression of one who has something on her
mind.

Mr. Wilkins, wanting to find out what it was, strolled in the sun
in his Panama hat, and began to meet her accidentally.

"I did not know," said Mr. Wilkins the first time, courteously
raising his hat, "that you too liked this particular spot." And he sat
down beside her.

In the afternoon she chose another spot; and she had not been in
it half an hour before Mr. Wilkins, lightly swinging his cane, came
round the corner.

"We are destined to meet in our rambles," said Mr. Wilkins
pleasantly. And he sat down beside her.

Mr. Wilkins was very kind, and she had, she saw, misjudged him in
Hampstead, and this was the real man, ripened like fruit by the
beneficent sun of San Salvatore, but Rose did want to be alone. Still,
she was grateful to him for proving to her that though she might bore
Frederick she did not bore everybody; if she had, he would not have sat
talking to her on each occasion till it was time to go in. True he
bored her, but that wasn't anything like so dreadful as if she bored
him. Then indeed her vanity would have been sadly ruffled. For now
that Rose was not able to say her prayers she was being assailed by
every sort of weakness: vanity, sensitiveness, irritability, pugnacity
--strange, unfamiliar devils to have coming crowding on one and taking
possession of one's swept and empty heart. She had never been vain or
irritable or pugnacious in her life before. Could it be that San
Salvatore was capable of opposite effects, and the same sun that
ripened Mr. Wilkins made her go acid?

The next morning, so as to be sure of being alone, she went down,
while Mr. Wilkins was still lingering pleasantly with Mrs. Fisher over
breakfast, to the rocks by the water's edge where she and Lotty had sat
the first day. Frederick by now had got her letter. To-day, if he
were like Mr. Wilkins, she might get a telegram from him.

She tried to silence the absurd hope by jeering at it. Yet--if
Mr. Wilkins had telegraphed, why not Frederick? The spell of San
Salvatore lurked even, it seemed, in notepaper. Lotty had not dreamed
of getting a telegram, and when she c