or she knew her father's
humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie
on your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to
me?"

"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the
secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will
stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we
shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried
away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife.
"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest
words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian
proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or
a woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have
already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here."

"She, poor child! Oh, no!"

"She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I
am of tent-stitch."

"She sings beautifully."

"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut.
Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to
take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We
shall see."

"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?"

"We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--"

"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.

Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted
into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He
put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without
a single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be
back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss,
and there is so much to see to at home."

Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her
hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.

"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that
shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because
of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years
in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your
breast,--all these years in which I have had no thought but, however
humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you
had read my heart, and seen there but you