han from books, although there is an innate tendency in
all well-born people to acquire them spontaneously. But there! you'll
accuse me of preaching and, after all, I think you've done just
splendidly under rather trying circumstances."

"You don't know how trying they are," declared Alora, with a sigh.
"Father and I are wholly uncongenial and we fight on the slightest
provocation. This morning our trouble was over money. I wanted a little
to take with me, for my purse hasn't a _lira_ in it; but, no! not a
_centisimo_ would he give up. He insisted that if I was to be your
guest you would pay all my expenses."

"Of course," said Mary Louise. "But what does he do with all that big
income? Is he saving it for you?"

"No, indeed! he's saving it for himself. Mamma told me, the last time I
saw her before she died, that if father was good to me, and kind and
loving, I could provide for him in some way after I came into my money.
She said she would leave the manner of it to my judgment. But he isn't
kind, or loving, or good, and knows very well that when I'm of age
he'll never see another cent of my money. So now he'd hoarding my
income for future use."

"Isn't it strange that your mother should have trusted him so fully?"
asked Mary Louise.

"Yes, it does seem strange. I remember her saying that he loved luxury
and all the comfort that money will buy, and so she wanted him to have
this income to spend, because he was my father and because she felt she
had ruined his career as an artist by surrounding him with luxuries
during their early married life, and afterward had embittered him by
depriving him of them. But the man doesn't know what luxury means, Mary
Louise. His tastes are those of a peasant."

"Yet once your mother loved him, and believed in him."

"I--I think she believed in him; I'm quite sure she did."

"Then his nature must have changed. I can imagine, Alora, that when
your mother first knew him he was hard-working and ambitious. He was
talented, too, and that promised future fame. But when he married a
wealthy woman he lost his ambition, success being no longer necessary.
After a period of ease and comfort in the society of his lovely wife--
for Gran'pa says your mother was very lovely--he lost both the wife and
the luxuries he enjoyed. A big man, Alora, would have developed a new
ambition, but it seems your father was not big. His return to poverty
after your mother's desertion made him bitter and reckles