le
very close together when they are in that state. I found her fallen
upon the landing one day and unable to reach her rooms, and I
carried her in and talked. Since then she looks for me every
evening, and we spend some part of the time together."

"Is she educated?"

"Excellently," he answered. "She was brought up in a convent after
her parents' death. She has read a marvellous collection of books,
and she is very quick-witted and appreciative."

"But you," she said, "are no longer a waif. These things are
passing for you. You cannot carry with you to the new world the
things which belong to the old."

"No prosperity should ever come to me," he declared, firmly, "in
which that child would not share to some extent. With the first two
hundred pounds I possess, if ever I do possess such a sum," he
added, with a little laugh, "I am going to send her to Vienna, to
the great hospital there."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Two hundred pounds is not a large sum," she remarked. "Would you
like me to lend it to you?"

He shook his head.

"She would not hear of it," he said. "In her way, she is very
proud."

"It may come of its own accord," she whispered, softly. "You may
even have an opportunity of earning it."

"I am doing well enough just now," he remarked, "thanks to Mr.
Weatherley, but sums of money like that do not fall from the
clouds."

They were both silent. She seemed to be listening to the murmur of
the stream. His head was lifted to the elm tree, from somewhere
among whose leafy recesses a bird was singing.

"One never knows," she said softly. "You yourself have seen and
heard of strange things happening within the last few days."

He came back to earth with a little start.

"It is true," he confessed.

"There is life still," she continued, "throbbing sometimes in the
dull places, adventures which need only the strong arm and the
man's courage. One might come to you, and adventures do not go
unrewarded."

"You talk like your brother," he remarked.

"Why not?" she replied. "Andrea and I have much in common. Do you
know that sometimes you provoke me a little?"

"I?"

She nodded.

"You have so much the air of a conqueror," she said. "You look as
though you had courage and determination. One could see that by your
mouth. And yet you are so much like the men of your nation, so
stolid, so certain to move along the narrow lines which convention
has drawn for you. Oh! if I could," she went on,