ott, you have not often been exposed to inclement
weather?" said the Professor, looking up.

_He_ meant rain; but Mrs. Trescott, who took it upon herself to answer
him, always meant metaphor. "Not yet," she answered; "no inclement
weather yet for my child, because I have stood between. But the time may
come when, _that_ barrier removed--" Here she waved her little claw-like
hand, heavy with gems, in a sort of sepulchral suggestiveness, and took
refuge in coffee.

The Professor, who supposed the conversation still concerned the
weather, said a word or two about the excellent English umbrella he had
purchased in London, and then returned to his discourse. "The first
mountains behind us," he remarked, "are between three and four thousand
feet high; the second chain attains a height of eight and nine thousand
feet, and, stretching back, mingles with the Swiss Alps. _Our_ name is
Alpes Maritimes; we run along the coast in this direction" (indicating
it on the table-cloth with his spoon), "and at Genoa we become the
Apennines. The winter climate of Mentone is due, therefore, to its
protected situation; cold winds from the north and northeast, coming
over these mountains behind us, pass far above our heads, and advance
several miles over the sea before they fall into the water. The mistral,
too, that scourge of Southern France, that wind, cold, dry, and sharp,
bringing with it a yellow haze, is unknown here, kept off by a
fortunately placed shoulder of mountain running down into the sea on the
west."

"Indeed?" I said, seeing the search for a listener beginning.

"Yes," he replied, starting on anew, encouraged, but, as usual, not
noticing from whom the encouragement came--"yes; and the sirocco is
even pleasant here, because it comes to us over a wide expanse of water.
The characteristics of a Mentone winter are therefore sunshine,
protection from the winds, and dryness. It is, in truth, remarkably
dry."

"Very," said Inness.

"I have scarcely ever seen it equalled," remarked Baker.

Margaret smiled, but I looked at the two youths reprovingly. Mrs.
Trescott said, "Dry? Do you find it so? But you are young, whereas _I_
have reminiscences. _Tears_ are not dry."

They certainly are not; but why she should have alluded to them at that
moment, no one but herself knew. There was a mystery about some of Mrs.
Trescott's moods which made her society interesting: no one could ever
tell what she would say next.

After breakfas