me find their souls? That would be a strange
consummation, deeply impressive; I should much like to try to bring it
about, but I am afraid the time is very far from ripe as yet. However, I
should at all events wish to see them once again before we part. We
have, after all, attained to some intimacy, they and I; we have shared
so many vivid experiences, and had so much striking talk together.'

But Mrs. Venables was at last induced to put her parting words into a
letter--four sheets, closely written. Betty took it to read to Tommy,
and they composed an answer together, with immense pains, resisting
manfully the temptations to 'strike' which assailed them.

'And so that's the end of Mrs. Venables,' said Betty, sighing as she
signed her name. 'And I suppose no one will ever think us so interesting
again.... I wonder, Tommy, if we made the most of our opportunities....'

They mournfully pondered over the unreturning past. Yet they had
certainly made, if not the most, at any rate a good deal, of those
regretted opportunities. They had, both purposely and accidentally,
succeeded in being a real and profound impression. When they arrived at
the age that in their opinion justified them in reading Mrs. Venables'
works, they would probably get much pleasure out of their own portraits.

Miranda Venables came to see Betty the day before her family left
Naples. She came in with a dejected air.

'I've come to say good-bye. We're going to-morrow. It'll be rather
ripping getting home and getting some cricket and tennis, only I'm
simply too awfully slack for anything after all this fooling round doing
nothing. Feel.' She held out a plump arm for Betty to pinch. 'Horrid
flabby, isn't it? And I say, I'm awfully sick at having to say good-bye,
you know.'

The round face was tragically despondent. Miranda had scarcely realized
till now how much she liked the Crevequers. She said so.

'You are rotters, you two, but you do make things go, you know,' she
explained, a little embarrassed at her own frankness. 'And, I say, I
hope we all meet again sometime--not in this beastly place, but at home.
You might come and stay with us; you'd get some hockey. Oh, I forgot;
you don't care about doing things. But it's beastly saying good-bye. I
hate it.'

'So do I,' Betty said. 'So I never do it. Let's not. Let's come and have
ices instead.'

They went and had ices at Caflisch's, and the pathos of the occasion was
salient. Miranda, after the seco