er
have cold water, thank you, sir, for a steady drink, morning, noon and
night. I'm going to be good, to read and study and grow restful,"--and
Mae folded her hands and looked off toward the sea. "She's a witching
child," thought Norman. Then she raised her head. "I said it lightly
because I felt it deeply," she added, as if in reply to his thought. "I
am going to grow, if I can, unselfish and sympathetic, and perhaps, who
knows, wise, and any way good."

"There is no need of giving up your champagne entirely. Give yourself
a dinner party now and then o' holidays. The world is full of color and
beauty, and poetry you love. All study is full of it--most of all it
lives in humanity."

"Well," said Mae, "aren't you glad I'm going to change so?"

"I'm glad you're going to give your soul a chance. Your body has been
putting it down hard of late."

"It's but a weakling," said Mae, with a shake of her head, "and I've
hardly heard its whimpers at all, but--O, Mr. Mann, if you could have
seen Talila--she's dreadful."

"Who is Talila? and what has she to do with your soul?"

"O, she's one of those Sorrento people," replied Mae, as if she had
lived there for years. "I have so much to tell you: it will take--"

"Years, I hope, dear." The last word dropped without his noticing it,
but Mae caught it and hid it in her heart.

"What made you think of coming for me?" she asked, after a pause, during
which Norman had hummed a song as she had been writing her name on the
sand. They were quite on the shore and only a narrow stretch of beach
separated them from the bay. "You said if you ever came away, you would
go to Sorrento, and I knew you had a friend in the kitchen who lived
near Naples. So I searched for her and the padrona, and, finding neither
of them, set Giovanni a babbling, and learned that the woman Lisetta had
left that morning for Sorrento. I told the boys I had a mere suspicion
that I would trace for them. So off I came last night, and by stopping
and enquiring at every settlement, at last discovered you."

"This is my birth-day; I am twenty years old," said Mae, "Why, what are
you doing?" For Norman had bent down to the sand also, and had drawn a
queer little figure there.

"That is you when you were one year old," he laughed, "and you could
only crow and kick your small feet, and smile now and then, and cry the
rest of the time."

"That is about all I can do yet," said Mae.

"Here comes number two," and he d