ister must be"--and he tapped his forehead; while Sophia, with a
look of annihilating scorn, drew her drapery tight around her, and
withdrew.

"What did I say? What do I think? What terror is in my heart? Oh, Harry,
Harry, Harry!"

She buried her face in her hands, and sat lost in woeful thought,--sat so
long that Phoebe the table-maid felt her delay to be unkind and
aggravating; especially when one of the chamber-maids came down for her
supper, and informed the rulers of the servants' hall that "Mrs. Julius
was crying up-stairs about Miss Charlotte falling out with her husband."

"Mercy on us! What doings we have to bide with!" and Ann shook her check
apron, and sat down with an air of nearly exhausted patience.

"You can't think what a taking Mr. Julius is in. He's going away
to-morrow."

"For good and all?"

"Not he. He'll be back again. He has had a falling-out with Miss
Charlotte."

"Poor lass! Say what you will, she has been hard set lately. I never
knew nor heard tell of her being flighty and fratchy before the squire's
trouble."

"Good hearts are plenty in good times, Ann Skelton. Miss Charlotte's
temper is past all the last few weeks, she is that off-and-on and
changeable like and spirity. Mrs. Julius says she does beat all."

"I don't pin my faith on what Mrs. Julius says. Not I."

In the east rooms the criticism was still more severe. Julius railed for
an hour ere he finally decided that he never saw a more suspicious,
unladylike, uncharitable, unchristianlike girl than Charlotte Sandal! "I
am glad to get away from her a little while," he cried; "how can she be
your sister, Sophia?"

So glad was he to get away, that he left before Charlotte came down in
the morning. Ann made him a cup of coffee, and received a shilling and
some suave words, and was quite sure after them that "Mr. Julius was the
finest gentleman that ever trod in shoe-leather." And Julius was not
above being gratified with the approbation and good wishes of servants;
and it gave him pleasure to leave in the little hurrah of their bows and
courtesies, their smiles and their good wishes.

He went without delay straight to the small Italian village in which
Harry had made his home. Harry's letters had prepared him for trouble
and poverty, but he had little idea of the real condition of the heir of
Sandal-Side. A few bare rooms in some dilapidated palace, grim with
faded magnificence, comfortless and dull, was the kind of place he