ry lovable, I'm sure; so the fault must
lie with her boorish father. Allowing that once he was a big man,
something has mysteriously soured him and rendered his life hateful not
only to himself but to all around him."

"Look, Mary Louise; we're getting into Sorrento," said the Colonel.
"Here the road leaves the sea and crosses the plateau to the town.
You'll like Sorrento, I'm sure, for it is one of the quaintest places
in old Italy--and the hotel is really comfortable."

CHAPTER XI
ALORA SPEAKS FRANKLY

On Saturday forenoon the Colonel engaged a carriage--a substantial one,
this time--and with Mary Louise drove to Jason Jones' villa, so that
Alora might return with them in time for lunch. They did not see the
artist, who was somewhere about the grounds but kept out of view; but
Alora was ready and waiting, her cheeks flushed and her eyes alight,
and she slipped her foreign little straw satchel in the carriage and
then quickly followed it, as if eager to be off.

"Father is rather disagreeable this morning," she asserted in a sharp
voice, when they were on the highway to Sorrento. "He repented his
decision to let me go with you and almost forbade me. But I rebelled,
and----" she paused; "I have found that when I assert myself I can
usually win my way, for father is a coward at heart."

It pained Mary Louise to hear so unfilial a speech from the lips of a
young girl. Colonel Hathaway's face showed that he, too, considered it
unmannerly to criticise a parent in the presence of strangers. But both
reflected that Alora's life and environments were unenviable and that
she had lacked, in these later years at least, the careful training due
one in her station in society. So they deftly changed the subject and
led the girl to speak of Italy and its delightful scenery and romantic
history. Alora knew little of the country outside of the Sorrento
peninsula, but her appreciation of nature was artistic and innately
true and she talked well and interestingly of the surrounding country
and the quaint and amusing customs of its inhabitants.

"How long do you expect to remain here?" asked Mary Louise.

"I've no idea," was the reply. "Father seems entirely satisfied with
our quarters, for he has no ambition in life beyond eating three simple
meals a day, sleeping from nine at night until nine in the morning and
reading all the romances he is able to procure. He corresponds with no
one save his banker in America and sees no o