when she knew him
better, she might learn to like him.

He was gone a long time, it seemed, but as soon as he returned the
remaining baggage was loaded on the wagon and sent away and then they
left the flat and boarded a street car for down town. On lower Broadway
Mr. Jones entered a bank and seemed to transact considerable business.
Lory saw him receive several papers and a lot of money. Then they went
to a steamship office near by, where her father purchased tickets.

Afterward they had lunch, and Jason Jones was still in high spirits and
seemed more eager and excited than Alora had ever before known him.

"We're going across the big water--to Europe," he told her at luncheon,
"so if there is anything you positively need for the trip, tell me what
it is and I'll buy it. No frivolities, though," qualifying his
generosity, "but just stern necessities. And you must think quick, for
our boat leaves at four o'clock and we've no time to waste."

But Alora shook her head. Once she had been taken by her mother to
London, Paris and Rome, but all her wants had been attended to and it
was so long ago--four or five years--that that voyage was now but a dim
remembrance.

No one noticed them when they went aboard. There was no one to see them
off or to wish them "bon voyage." It saddened the child to hear the
fervent good-byes of others, for it emphasized her own loneliness.

Yes, quite friendless was little Alora. She was going to a foreign land
with no companion but a strange and uncongenial man whom fate had
imposed upon her in the guise of a parent. As they steamed out to sea
and Alora sat on deck and watched the receding shores of America, she
turned to her father with the first question she had ventured to ask:

"Where are we going? To London?"

"Not now," he replied. "This ship is bound for the port of Naples. I
didn't pick Naples, you know, but took the first ship sailing to-day.
Having made up my mind to travel, I couldn't wait," he added, with a
chuckle of glee. "You're not particular as to where we go, are you?"

"No," said Alora.

"That's lucky," he rejoined, "for it wouldn't have made any difference,
anyhow."

CHAPTER VII
MARY LOUISE INTRUDES

It was four years later when on a sunny afternoon in April a carriage
broke down on the Amalfi Road, between Positano and Sorrento, in Italy.
A wheel crumpled up and the driver stopped his horses and explained to
his passengers in a jumble of mixed Italian and