ely his friends could not come. Still,
I was to go, and dine, and float on the water, plucking flowers. I
determined to fancy myself in Venice, which is the place my husband must
take me to, when I am married to him. I will give him my whole body and
soul for his love, when I am there!"

Here the cornet was capable of articulate music for a moment, but it
resolved itself into: "Well, well! Yes, go on!"

"I took his arm this time. It gave me my first timid feeling that I
remember, and he laughed at me, and drove it quite away, telling me his
name: Augustus Frederick what was it? Augustus Frederick--it began with
G something. O me! have I really forgotten? Christian names are always
easier to remember. A captain he was--a riding one; just like you. I
think you are all kind!"

"Extremely," muttered the ironical cornet. "A.F.G.;--those are the
initials on the handkerchief!"

"They are!" cried Emilia. "It must have been his own handkerchief!"

"You have achieved the discovery," quoth Wilfrid. "He dropped it there
overnight, and found it just as you were passing in the morning."

"That must be impossible," said Emilia, and dismissed the subject
forthwith, in a feminine power of resolve to be blind to it.

"I am afraid," she took up her narrative, "my father is sometimes really
almost mad. He does such things! I had walked under this gentleman's
umbrella to the bridge between the park and the gardens with the sheep,
and beautiful flowers in beds. In an instant my father came up right in
our faces. He caught hold of my left hand. I thought he wanted to shake
it, for he imitates English ways at times, even with us at home, and
shakes our hands when he comes in. But he swung me round. He stood
looking angrily at this gentleman, and cried 'Yes! yes!' to every word
he spoke. The gentleman bowed to me, and asked me to take his umbrella;
but I was afraid to; and my father came to me,--oh, Madonna, think
of what he did! I saw that his pockets were very big. He snatched out
potatoes, and began throwing them as hard as he could throw them at
the gentleman, and struck him with some of them. He threw nine large
potatoes! I begged him to think of our dinner; but he cried 'Yes! it is
our dinner we give to your head, vagabond!' in his English. I could not
help running up to the gentleman to beg for his pardon. He told me not
to cry, and put some potatoes he had been picking up all into my hand.
They were muddy, but he wiped them first